


Teshuvah

by myownremedy



Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Historical Inaccuracy, Jewish Bucky Barnes, Judaism, M/M, Non-Linear Narrative, Recovery, Water and God
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-04-09
Updated: 2015-04-09
Packaged: 2018-03-21 08:41:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3685674
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/myownremedy/pseuds/myownremedy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>As we come forth, so we shall return.</i> Ecclesiastes 5:14</p>
            </blockquote>





	Teshuvah

**Author's Note:**

  * For [murderousdeer](https://archiveofourown.org/users/murderousdeer/gifts).



> This is for Alex, who wanted more jewish bucky fic. Alex is, sincerely, too many things to put into words but all of them are wonderful. I'm sorry this is so late; I hope you are having a happy Passover. I cannot thank you enough for holding my hand while I wrote this, I only hope it's the fic of your dreams.  
> I know there are a lot of jewish bucky fics; I've read none of them. I didn't want to subconsciously 'borrow' ideas. I myself am not Jewish, but Alex served as my advisor and expert, and as this is a gift to her, Bucky's mother's heritage matches Alex's. I started writing this in July 2014 and then had to put it down for health reasons and then picked it back up and hurried to finish and _I can't look at it anymore_ so hmu if there are typos (I am sure there are, my apologies).
> 
> Some vocabulary:  
> The title, Teshuvah, is the Jewish concept of repentance/return.  
> The Mikvah is a Jewish ritual bath used for purification.  
> Mamma is, obviously, 'mother' in Italian.  
> Nonna is 'grandmother' in Italian.  
> Matoki is 'sweetie' in Hebrew and generally reserved for children.  
> Ha-Shem is an acceptable name for Jewish people to call God when conversing.  
> Yom Kippur is a major Jewish holiday and also known as Atonement Day. It includes 25 hours of fasting and intensive prayer.  
> Tahara is ritual purification in Judaism and also the washing and purifying of a dead body.  
> Halachah is Jewish law.  
> Mitzvot are the Commandments.
> 
> disclaimer: y'all gay, y'all old, y'all fictional, none of this is mine.  
> edit (4-13-15): this is a transformative work. I make no money off of it. I do not own what inspired this work (marvel, captain america: the winter soldier, the marvel universe, etc), but I do own this work itself and hold full copyright over it. Thank you.  
>   
>    
>  **warnings: suicidal ideation, anti semitism, the holocaust & all Horrors within it, minor blood and gore, medical experimentation, captain america: the winter soldier typical torture and violence, lots of religion. let me know if i've missed any!**

 

 

 

> The single greatest gift granted by G-d to humankind is  _teshuvah --_ the possibility of return-to start anew and wash away the past.  _Teshuvah_  allows man to rise above the limitations imposed by time and makes it possible to affect our life retroactively. A single immersion in the  _mikvah_  late in life may appear insignificant to some, a quick and puny act. Yet coupled with dedication and awe, it is a monumental feat; it brings purity and its regenerative power not only to the present and future but even to one's past. -- Rikvah Slomin, _Introduction to Total Immersion: A Mikvah Anthology_

 

In the end, it is he that surrenders.

 

He does not, cannot, remember most of it – the centuries old cobble stones, the loading and reloading of his gun, long silhouettes cast by street lamps and the names of cities falling together. Keeping out of sight, covering metal arm with jacket and glove, eating and sleeping too rarely.

He decays, like any living thing, bones emerging, moving closer to his skin. His arm does not rust. His heart is too loud.

He is being hunted, despite the fact cobblestones leave no trail, despite the fact he has no name and no purpose.

For a while, he runs, until his boots are worn through and his disguises are threadbare.

It occurs him, as he watches a blond man with broad shoulders and a black man with an easy smile – they are the hunters, surely – that even non living things decay. That metal rusts. That water turns sour. Perhaps he, then, is not a living thing. Just a machine with half it’s cogs missing, hair long and matted, eyes sunken but still blue – an imitation of life.

It would be easier to stop running, he thinks. He does not have much longer. To lay down his guns, both symbolic and literal, will only speed up the process. He has no amusements to pass the time.

He breaks into their hotel room when they are at the café around the corner and dissembles his weapons, places each piece into rows on the table. He almost forgets to disarm himself of things that are not attached. He will never be completely disarmed. His metal arm is not an arm, it is a weapon. He is not a person, he is a machine. Something made, to protect, to kill, to maim. To break.

He stretches out on the bed, flesh arm flung over his eyes. The world falls away. Gradually, the hunters’ heartbeats grow louder.

He remembers the door opening, and then -

 

*

 

_Steve, sullen and drowning in too big hand-me-downs, the smell of sickness and grave dirt still on him. Steve, stubborn and shy, ducking his head down, mouth a thin line._

_Steve, his shoulder thin and bony beneath layers of wool and Bucky’s hand._

_“I’m with you, til the end of the line, pal.” Bucky tells him, and Steve peeks up through his lashes and smiles –_

*

 

_Beep. Beep._

He does not open his eyes.

 _Beep. Beep_.

He smells antiseptic, sweat, and soap. His hands are cuffed to the bars of a hospital bed. There’s a needle digging into the vein of his flesh arm.

This is not where he expected to go, to _be_.

(He doesn’t remember much but what he does remember points to purification or a new life, not a continuation, and do they – do they have hospitals, and needles, and pain in the _after?_ )

Voices – slightly muffled – sound.

“When do you think he’s going to wake up?” that’s the big shouldered blonde man.

He concentrates. The man sounds like he’s behind a sheet of glass, and for a minute, the asset’s heart drops in a long slow movement into the pit of his stomach, but _it is not cold_ and he breathes, keeps breathing, long and slow so the heart monitor won’t pick up.

“Hard to say,” this is said rapid fire. “He’s been through a lot, your guy. Sixty plus years of torture, malnutrition, untreated injuries…” A whistle. “Plus, he’s been lugging around eighty pounds of outdated hardware. I’m pretty sure that’s a crime. Maybe a crime against humanity.”

“Tony.” A woman’s voice. Soft, flat, deadly. Familiar, somehow. He fought her before he fought the big shouldered man, the man on the bridge.

“Right,” says the fast man – Tony. For no reason at all, the asset thinks about a murder made to look like a car crash, thinks about hearing a squealing, squalling child wail in the backseat of the ruined car as he disappeared into the night.

(He wonders if Tony also remembers this. Perhaps not, he was so young – and yet –)

“It’ll happen when it happens, man,” this man’s voice is also soft, but in a way that indicates gentleness and empathy. It is not hushed out of habit. He is the man with the wings.

“And when it happens,” Tony says, “I’m ready. I know SHIELD went down the shitter but I have very trusted doctors, psychiatrists, therapists, you name, they’re on staff. I ever have a Catholic Priest, if he wants to go to confession.”

The man on the bridge makes a small noise. Then, in a rush, he says: “Do you have a –”

And at the same time, the Widow says, “he needs a Rabbi.”

The asset opens his eyes.

 

*

 

Rachel Barnes, previously Rachele Zarfati, was very aware of the exact gifts and limitations of her situation. Her parents felt her blessed to grow up on American soil, though that did not stop them from telling her about the beauties and joy of what they taught her to call _Roma_. Her parents had high hopes for America that were tempered only by the reality of over five thousand years of persecution.

In the turn of the 20th century, people could be forgiven for being conflicted over what it was worse to be in New York: Italian, or Jewish.

Rachel’s parents did not say, _try being both_. They did not say, _it’s a tough call_. They said, _we speak Italian fluently_ and let people make their own assumptions. Behind closed doors, Rachel learned Hebrew and Italian.

But people knew.

Just as people will now look at Natasha and know she is Russian, people knew Rachel was Jewish.

 

Rachel fell in love with an Irish Catholic boy who was too stupid, too reckless, or too besotted to understand the realities of their situations. This was America; it was the dawn of a new age, a new century – why should race, culture, and religion keep them apart?

(She knew better. He did not.)

The wedding ceremony was very tense. The two families barely spoke to one another. There was no chuppah, no rabbi.

(Her father said, angrily, _this is assimilation_.

She did not argue. She did not say, _but I love him_. She did not say, _this happens_. Her father did not need her to tell him that.)

 

The year they married, war struck out in Europe. They were both children of immigrants: hers, from Italy, his, from Ireland.

“Do you think America will get involved?” Rachel had asked, her long dark hair falling like a flood down her shoulders. She was in bed, nightgown brushing her ankles. Ben – such an Irish Catholic name – was getting ready for bed.

“Probably,” he had said, undoing his suspenders. “We’re sort of like that, aren’t we?”

 _We_. Rachel had kept her face blank.

“Come to bed,” she had said, instead of asking _is it really ‘we?’_

He had obeyed.

 

Once, when she was pregnant with their first child, Ben asked her to go to mass. It was the mass for Palm Sunday. Passover would start in three days. Ben had already agreed to let Rachel spend it with her parents

And now – he wanted her to attend mass.

“No,” Rachel said immediately. “Never.”

“This is important to me,” Ben had said earnestly, taking one of her hands in both of his. “Jesus was Jewish, you know.”

“Yes, I know,” Rachel had agreed.

“Palm Sunday celebrates him riding into Jerusalem on a donkey, like Solomon once did.”

“I know of Solomon.”

Ben was unmoved. “Jesus wept,” it had been a mistake to marry him, she sees that now. “He crested the hill of Jerusalem and wept, because he saw the hardships Israel would face.”

 _From people like you_ , Rachel thought, her hand limp in his. Ben flinched away from her, though she hadn’t – and would never – offer those words to him.

“I know this is important to you,” Rachel said instead. “But my culture, my heritage, my religion – it’s important to _me_. And I wish you would respect that.”

“Please don’t get upset,” Ben had said, his hands still clutching hers. “The baby –”

“I need to know this baby can be raised with respect for both of its heritages,” Rachel kept her voice low. She knew what happened to women who shouted. “I _need_ to know, Benjamin Isaac Barnes.”

“Of course,” he had shushed her. “Of course. Please, don’t exhaust yourself.”

Was it the first lie he told her? No. It was just the first lie she knw.

 

Bucky was born healthy; Rachel was exhausted.

“You are so little,” Ben had said, standing by her bed and watching her hold Bucky. They had named him James, James Buchanan after Ben’s favorite President. It was not a Jewish name; it was not a Catholic one. “And he is so big, I had feared…” he rested a hand on her shoulder and Rachel had smiled up at him. She was too tired to fight with him.

 

For a time she was so busy with Bucky – it felt wrong to call such a small person a big name like ‘James’ – that she and Ben did not talk about anything. They did not argue, they simply fell into bed at night. He worked in a steel factory; she considered motherhood to be two or three jobs in one. They were busy. They were happy.

1915 sped rapidly into 1916, and then Bucky was one and Ben was promoted. He was gone so often now, usually worked over time and came home past dinner.

Rachel seized on this. She spoke Hebrew to Bucky as often as she spoke English. She sang the _Shema_ to him before he went to sleep. She took Bucky to the _Mikvah_ after he was born, and then continued to visit the _Mikvah_ for _niddah_ , while Bucky slept. She got so used to doing this, unimpeded, that Ben caught her singing Bucky to sleep.

“What are you doing?” he had asked from the doorway of Bucky’s room, and Rachel flinched before she could stop herself.

“Singing,” she replied. “He can’t sleep without a lullaby.”

“You can’t sing to him in –”

“Hebrew?” Rachel asked. She had turned, had set Bucky down in his crib, and then faced Ben. “We had an agreement, Ben.”  
“I didn’t realize you wanted to do that,” Ben had said, slowly, eyes dimming. “I thought you just – wanted to tell him, that you were Jewish. I thought –”

‘That it would be enough for him to know? But not enough to teach him what it means?”

“He’s Catholic. _We’re_ Catholic.”

“No,” Rachel jutted her chin out. “ _You’re_ Catholic. I’m Jewish. He might be Catholic but he’s Jewish too.” She paused, let herself slump. “What’s the harm in it? Teaching him both heritages? He has a right to both of them.”

Ben changed tactics. He was, in his way, weak, and she despised him for it. “Come, my love. Let us go to bed. We can talk about this in the morning, when we are both rested.”

He did not try to touch her that night. She did not know what she would have done if he had.

 

They didn’t talk about it, not really – whenever it was brought up, Ben ended up backing down. She wondered when he would tell his parents, if they would get involved. They had only been by to see Bucky a few times. They hated her, and she knew it.

Then, 1916 rolled into 1917. Rachel and Ben made love on News Years Day, amidst Ben’s promises that this year would be different, that they would figure it out, that she could teach Bucky all about Judaism – if she let Ben take him to mass.

(Rachel agreed. She felt that was fair.)

Maybe that year could have been different, maybe it could have been the start of something new, if not for the fact that America entered the war and plucked Ben away from her and Bucky.

Ben had laid a hand on her belly before he left, had kissed her and her stomach and Bucky.

“I’ll come back,” he had promised. “I’ll bring you all the spoils of war. I’ll get a promotion and buy us a house, with a garden.” He had said, “I love you.”

He had died, little more than a week after arriving at the western front.

 

 _“What will you do now?”_ Her mother had asked in Italian, after Rachel arrived bearing Bucky and the news. She was gracious, reaching for Rachel’s hand and rubbing her thumb across Rachel’s knuckles. Mrs. Zarfati had never liked Ben. Today, it did not show. _“You seem to be in shock.”_

Rachel hugged Bucky close to her. It was 1917; his life had just begun. In a way, so had hers.

“I think,” she had said, dropping her mother’s hand to pick up her cup of tea, “that I will stop taking Bucky to mass.”

 _“I think that’s a wonderful idea,”_ her mother said, also sipping her tea. This time, she spoke in Hebrew.

Rachel smiled.

 

*

 

“A _rabbi?”_ Tony demands. “Excuse me, I thought he was raised in Irish Catholic Brooklyn. Or is this a new, hip thing, did he convert last minute during the war, what the _hell_ , Steve –”

“Tony.” The man on the bridge – Steve? – and the Widow say together.

There is a pause. The asset turns his head. There’s a large window – an observation window – and they’re crowded behind it, Steve and the Widow staring at each other, Tony staring at them, and the flying man staring at him.

“He told me in the red room,” the Widow said finally, folding first – something she infamously does not do. The words ‘the red room’ make his world lurch, and he clenches his metal fist. “It was a huge risk, for him. I was the only one that knew.”

“He didn’t advertise it,” Steve agreed. “Especially – with what happened during the War.”

“Barnes is not a Jewish name,” Tony says. He mutters it, actually, but the asset can still hear him. For a minute, time skips backward and Howard is standing there, but then Tony shakes his head and the asset takes a harsh, grating breath.

The car crash. Howard’s empty eyes, staring. His pretty wife, bloody and trying to crawl out of the car. The baby, screaming in the back seat.

The baby, grown up now, standing there with only his profile presented to the asset –

“His father was Irish Catholic,” Steve explains tiredly. “His mother was Jewish. Italian Jewish, actually. I’m told there’s a very old Jewish community in Rome.”

“But –”

“Hey,” the flying man cuts Tony off. “Guys. He’s awake, and I’m pretty sure he can hear everything you’re saying.”

Tony starts, violently. “JARVIS! I asked you to notify me when he was awake.”

 _“My apologies, sir,”_ says a cool, disembodied voice. “ _You seemed to be in the middle of an important conversation.”_

Steve takes a step forward and pressed a large, naked palm against the glass. He looks – the same as he had on the bridge. Tired blue eyes, full lips, face bare of stubble, and a jaw strong enough to dissuade any punches.

The asset’s world flickers, because Steve looks like someone he once would have thought of as his – his Steve, tiny and bird-boned frail, but blue eyed, blonde, with a strong jawline and full lips.

The asset bares his teeth and wrenches at his restraints.

“Bucky,” Steve says, Steve who isn’t his, Steve who said _you’re my best friend_ , Steve who had managed to say, despite broken ribs, _I’m with you, til the end of the line_.

The asset _howls_.

“Buck!” Steve scrambles towards the door, only to meet the solid body of the flying man, who is slighter than Steve and not as strong, but giving it his best. The Widow suffers from no such obstacles, and lets herself into his room.

“ _You,”_ the asset snarls in Russian. The Widow eyes him coolly.

“Me,” she agrees in the same language. “Just so you know, JARVIS will translate everything we say. Speaking in Russian, or Czech, or anything else won’t stop him.”

“I have no secrets,” the asset snarls, and something in the Widow’s eyes dims.

“Yasha,” she sighs. “We all have secrets.”

But his – his biggest – was laid bare by her and Steve. _He needs a rabbi_. How could she?

He jerks at his restraints again, and one gives.

“You won’t be hurt for that, Yasha,” the Widow says calmly. He remembers the name, now. Remembers when he was Yasha and she was Natalia. “They want to help you. No secrets, no wiping, no chair.”

He pauses, the cold sinking into his bones and then he shudders and yanks at the restraints until the metal of the bed warps. The Widow stands her ground.

“Do they know about you, then?” he asks, not sure what language leaves his lips but it is harsh and guttural.

“No,” he had forgotten what honesty, what _fear_ , looked like on her. It is a different type of fear then the fear he saw when he tried to empty his clip into her skull. “None of them do.” A pause. “Yasha, do you even remember – do you remember anything? Do you remember anything beyond the secret?”

His world warps with the metal of the bed and he tries to think past the fear of _they cannot know_ , to a cool female voice handing him a cyanide capsule and saying _don’t let them take you alive, you know where you’ll end up_ , to – what?

 

*

 

“Why are there so many names for God? Why does he need them all?” He is seven. They are in his house; Rebecca is asleep in the next room. His mother sits next to him on the couch, legs tucked to the side. The Rabbi, sitting opposite them, is tolerant, is amused.

“How many names do you have, James?”

“Three.”

“Why do you need so many?” The Rabbi had asked, flipping the question, and Bucky has fidgeted.

“I don’t know,” he admitted. “Everyone has a first and last name. But sometimes only one person uses one name, or sometimes I feel more like…Bucky then James.”

“Maybe that’s how it is for Ha-Shem,” the Rabbi had suggested. “Maybe he feels more like one name at one time. Maybe each name serves a different purpose.”

“How many names does he have?” Bucky had stilled in his seat, allowing himself to fully commit to the conversation.

“Well,” the Rabbi shifted, hands folding neatly around his cup of tea. “There are seven most well known names. Can you imagine having that many names, Bucky?”

“No,” Bucky had admitted, frowning. “Three’s enough.”

 

*

 

When he wakes up, the restraints have been reinforced and Steve is _yelling_ at Tony, who is standing next to the Widow, Natalia. This is all happening outside. The asset wonders if Tony knows how thin his walls are – he’s assuming this is Tony’s…place, since he controls the robot-voice.

(He is sure he’s been briefed on all of this; he must know more, but the details are frozen.)

In a chair by his bed sits the man that can fly.

“Hello,” he says, folding and putting down his paper. “I’m Sam Wilson.”

The asset stares.

“Your name is Bucky Barnes,” Sam continues. “We’re in the Avengers Tower in New York City. It’s June 6th, 2014.”

He is unarmed. He is calm, heart beat steady to the asset’s ears. But he holds himself with the poise of a soldier, and the asset does not trust him.

The asset’s eyes dart to the window that shows Steve ranting about ‘ _not right’_ and ‘ _sending the wrong message.’_

“He’s upset that we’re restraining you,” Sam explains, voice carefully neutral. The asset turns his head back to Sam, giving Sam his full attention. “He’s worried it will remind you of Hydra.”

He wrenches at the restraints and they hold. Goosebumps erupt along his skin.

“Wanna know what I think?” Sam asks.

The asset says nothing.

“I think you surrendered yourself to us. I think if you really wanted to, you wouldn’t let that bed hold you. I think you don’t really care where you are as long as we don’t hurt, and I think you trust us – well, me and Steve – not to, since you took apart all of your guns and lined them up nice and pretty back in Odessa.”

 _Odessa_. He remembers this, though he had forgotten the city. They all blend together, after so long.

“Are you trying to say,” his voice is rusty, “that you want to take off these?” he shakes his fists, rattles the restraints.

“You gonna try to kill Steve again? Because you nearly did.”

“He let me.” This is a truth, even if another truth is _I am his match._ A third truth is _but never his equal_.

Sam Wilson purses his lips.

Is this something he knew? Is this something he never considered? It is suicide to let someone kill you, or nearly kill you? That is telling. That is a weakness. If things were different, he would exploit that.

Or – would he?

“Who are you?” Sam demands of him, eyes hardening as he shifts from sympathizer to protector.

The asset stares at him.

“I have many names,” he says finally. What he means is, _I don’t know_.

Sam nods. “Which name do you like the best?”

 _I don’t know_.

He’s seven and Sam is a rabbi; he’s 3 and the only male Barnes in his household; he’s ageless and he is not permitted the dignity of a name.

Outside, the shouting has stopped.

“James,” says the asset. It seems too big of a name for him.

“Alright.” Sam says.

 

*

 

Water – he remembers it, remembers being immersed to become pure again, to become _tahara_ , though both his mother and the Rabbi had explained, _you’re never really pure, not in this world_.

Purity has become an abstract conception, no. It has simply become a word.

This river is not a holy bath, it is something in which the man on the bridge is fast sinking, down down _down_ and he.

Catches the man and pulls him up with his damaged metal arm, with the weapon, paddling up up _up_ as his flesh arm lay useless and dislocated.

The man on the bridge is _heavy_ , he is a block of sin, he is a red heifer, he is Samson’s pillars and the asset drags him to shore, sets him down with a pile of branches for his pillow.

His face is battered, lips and eyes swelling. In his rasping breaths, the asset can hear the grinding of broken ribs. Blood leaks from his gut from two shots. They were good shots.

The asset will have to take apart his guns, have to clean them and put them back together. They are waterlogged. His brain feels waterlogged. He is not permitted to have a brain.

His keepers hose him down when he smells too bad and the water feels like a cold knife that leaves him brushed and cold and somewhat clean. It is nothing like immersion. It is not purifying. It is not gentle.

He is not gentle.

The man on the bridge lies on the shore like it is an altar and the asset is both Abraham and the voice that says _no_. There is no ram.

The man on the bridge will live.

 

He steals clothing, sheds his Kevlar and holes up in a safe house to change and rearm. It is a safe house his keepers have forgotten about. It is a safe house that is very dusty. He does not mind; he is lethal with all weapons, even outdated ones.

His clothes are dark, baggy, and serviceable. All clothing can be armor of some kind; the one who taught him that was small and red. He loads up on weapons and moves.

Later, when he makes himself a niche in this abbreviated city, he takes only knives and sets out towards the Smithsonian. He filches a baseball cap from a sleeping man. He avoids the metal detectors of the museum. He keeps his metal hand in his pocket like a fencer would, balance and counter balance, a plan for each strike.

It is like he is having a vision, or a dream – to see himself, smiling, shoulder to shoulder with the man on the bridge. Reality folds itself into origami to accommodate this. _When history did not cooperate, it was changed_. He does not know what is real anymore. He cannot feel his limbs. Inside his pocket, his metal fingers bend into a mockery of a fist.

How obvious Bucky – he? – was with his affections. How foolish he must have been. How _young_. This is his face. This is his body. This is not his life.

But he does remember the fall.

(Any sinner would.)

 _Sergeant Barnes is the only Howling Commando to lose his life in service_.

That is true.

He is not James Buchanan Barnes. (He is). He is wearing a corpse suit with Barnes’s face. He makes a mockery of good man. He does not quite remember what good and evil mean anymore, he only knows to follow a pointing finger and find something to attack.

But there is no finger anymore, and now –

What?

 

*

 

“Oh,” says the small, dark haired man who is reading at his bedside. “Please don’t wake up on my account.” He laughs, nervously, and James stares at him.

He knows who this man is, only because the finger once pointed at this man before realizing it was an impossible task, and he was recalled.

They treated him like a hound or a hawk. He prefers neither.

Bruce Banner shuts his book and takes off his glasses, folding them and placing them in his pocket. It’s such a stupid thing to do. They’ll get broken if he transforms. Banner is not a soldier. Banner is still a threat. James is irrationally irritated.

“Don’t put your glasses there,” he orders. He’s still restrained to the bed. He is afraid. He bares his teeth at Banner.

“There’s no where for me to put them where they won’t break, I’m afraid,” Banner allows himself a self-deprecating smile. The heart monitor is beeping rapidly. “Would you like me to leave?”

“You can stay if you release me,” James snarls, because _he does not admit fear_ , he does not even _feel_ fear and yet he may throw up, he is trapped –

Banner reaches over, slowly, and fumbles with the restraints for his right hand. They come undone with a mechanical purr.

James does not wait for him to free the other hand, immediately keys in the combination  – Banner had not concealed it, how foolish, and yet it probably changes hourly – and then he is free and he sits up, no longer passive, no longer content to wait.

“Hang on,” Banner says, still very slowly. “You can’t leave. They won’t let you.”

He can barely hear Banner over his heart, it is so _loud_. He is trapped, trapped, trapped – he gets up, clad only in a hospital gown and moves until his back is at the corner. He has fought nude before. It is not an inconvenience. He does not get to decide what is easiest.

There is an IV attached to him, which he has dragged along with. Is it necessary?

“Who is ‘they’?” he demands, pausing long enough to ask that, to see that Banner is still the color of flesh, in it’s wide variations, and not at all green.

“We call ourselves the Avengers,” Banner explains. “Or – Tony calls us that, anyway.”

This was not something he had been briefed on, though he knows, now, that Tony is Ironman. Of course he is, he’s Howard’s son.

_(Does he know?)_

“It’s me, Black Widow, Captain America, Thor, and Hawkeye.”

He knows of Hawkeye, the man who – they say _seduced_ the Widow into joining his cause but the Widow does not allow herself to be seduced by anything or anyone. That was a choice she made. The misunderstanding is not something he has ever sought to clarify. Let them think she is weak enough to be seduced. They will be gentler, then.

“Am I –” he casts around, seizes on a memory so new and fresh that there’s no chance it was…manufactured. “Still in the Avengers Tower?”

“Yes.”

“What day is it?”

“June 10th.”

He flinches. He does not remember entering and exiting the cold this time – he will _always_ remember the cold – but to have lost four days –

“You’re sleeping a lot,” Bruce says, still calm. Maybe even genuinely calm. “Because you have…for lack of better words, a traumatic brain injury. Sleep helps generate new connections between neurons, helps your brain heal, and helps you remember things.”

In a smooth motion, James pulls the needle out of his arm and tosses it away. The progression of fluid in the tube stops. Blood flows out of his arm in a rivulet and drips onto the tiled floor. It is starkly red against the white. There is a star just as starkly red on his metal arm.

He uses one metal finger to draw a star with six points against the pale flesh of his arm. Now his arms match.

Bruce has stopped talking. He clears his throat.

“My mother was named Rebecca,” he says, and that tugs at James so keenly that he pauses, metal finger still bloody, and looks up at Bruce.

“She was Jewish. My father wasn’t. He wasn’t a good man.” The lines around Bruce’s mouth tighten.

James thinks about killing him, remembers he can’t. James thinks about killing the Widow for exposing his secret. James thinks about the Hudson River and about purity. James remembers.

“My sister’s name was Rebecca,” he rasps. “Rebecca Barnes.”

Banner smiles. It is very tentative. James wonders about smiling, only knows how to bare his teeth like a wolf. “I think it’s a really beautiful name,” he murmurs. “My mother was an amazing woman.”

“Why are you visiting me?” James interrupts, because he doesn’t know what else to do.

“I’m trying to figure out which Rabbi to recommend Tony,” Bruce says with another small smile. “It’s sort of a huge oversight for him, don’t you think? To have a Catholic priest but not a rabbi or an imam?” He shakes his head. “Pepper really gave him a talking too for that.”

“You’re going to recommend me a rabbi?”

“Oh, well.” Bruce says, shuffling his feet. He’s still in his chair, so calm, so sure he can handle James if James attacked. He’s right. James hates him for it. “My mother introduced me to a lot. I was a troubled child. And now I have a bit of a network.” He looks at James, carefully. “Do you have a preference?”

“Modern Orthodox, Sephardic. Roman. Italian, I mean.” James forces himself to be still instead of twitching in irritation. “Smart.”

All rabbis are smart; Judaism places such a high value on learning that rabbis are never _just_ rabbis.

Bruce gives him a smile that means, _that is redundant_ and James bares his teeth.

“Has anyone asked you if you _want_ to speak to a rabbi?” Bruce asks. The smile has dropped off his face, leaving it sheer, like a cliff.

James shakes his head. He knows the next question the way he knows how to assemble and load his rifles, how he knows the combination of movements to thrown a grown man clean across the room. He just doesn’t know the answer.

“Well,” Bruce says, because Bruce is a doctor of some sort and knows better than to ask stupid questions. “I’ll find you one, just in case.” He shifts, goes from gentle to brisk. “Now. I think we should get you some clothes.”

Slowly, like a cornered animal, James takes a step forward in agreement, and Bruce smiles so big, James’ face mirrors it for the length of a breath, and not one instant more.

 

*

 

He is contained to a set of rooms. There is nothing breakable in them; the furniture is bolted to the floor.

(He is both grateful and furious about this; it alternates. When he is pounding against the reinforced glass, trying to fling himself from the height of the tower, or threatening to kill any visitors, he hates they have deprived him of any weapons other than _himself_ , he hates being a weapon and only a weapon. When he is calmer, wrapped in a blanket and sipping tea that Bruce gives him, he is grateful. He knows how badly he can hurt someone, how badly he _has_ hurt people.

He does not remember how many people he has killed.)

They give him soft but durable shoes, sweat pants and jeans, shirts and sweatshirts. When he makes his preference for long sleeved shirts known, his t-shirts disappear. He wonders, idly, how he can make a similar preference for boxer briefs as opposed to just briefs known.

His quarters include a kitchen, a bedroom, a bathroom, and a living room with a loft. There are a great many books in the loft, books that chronicle history, culture, religion, philosophy, science. There’s even fiction. Bucky avoids the history and religion sections and sticks to science. There’s so much he wants to avoid in his own head; he cannot stomach anything written on the pages of books, there to be seen forever.

Steve does not visit, and James does not dwell on it. Bruce visits, often. James tolerates him but elects to stick to the loft and watch Bruce sit below. They drink tea and Bruce talks to him about things that don’t matter. James listens. Anything to quiet what goes on in his head.

 

He is remembering – too much. And yet, not enough.

 

Bruce asks him about that.

“Are you remembering?”

James has refused to see a therapist. A doctor of physics is apparently better than nothing.

“Too much.” James replies after a long pause. “I can’t…” he extends his arms, holds them wide, so wide his shoulders protest. His hands are splayed, fingers reaching. “It’s bigger than this. Bigger then anything I’ve ever known.” He pauses, arms dropping back to his sides. “I struggle.”

“Vast?” Bruce suggests. He is like an encyclopedia. “It means…immense. Incomprehensible. Indescribable.”

“More than that,” Bucky fidgets, tucking his hair behind his ears. “Just….unknowable.”

There is a memory blooming in the shape of his body.

“You should go now.” It is not a request.

Bruce smiles, sets down his teacup, and leaves.

 

*

 

Rebecca is obsessed with names. With their meanings, with the way they link back to each other. The oscillation of Italian, and Hebrew, and English and Hebrew, and English and Italian.

“Your name means heel,” Rebecca informs him. She is eight and he is 11. In a few days time he will meet Steve Rogers for the first time.

“Hmm?” Bucky looks up from the newspaper, which he is borrowing since Mamma isn’t done with it yet. “How d’you figure?”

“It’s actually a form of Jacob,” she tells him from her perch on the couch. She looks like their mother; tan, with long dark hair and big eyes. “Jacob means heel, or –” she peers at the book. “Supplanter?”

“Someone who takes the place of another.” Bucky explains. “Like Jacob did with Esau.”

Everyone knows the story of Jacob. It is one of Bucky’s favorites. Jacob, who became Israel. Jacob, who struggled not only with the status of his birth, but with God.

“What’s yours mean?” He asks, setting down the paper.

She wrinkles her nose. “A snare, or something.”

Bucky laughs. “Gee,” he says. “That sounds awful.”

Their Mamma sweeps in. She has started wearing color again, although they are always muted colors, like she doesn’t want to draw attention to herself. And that – that’s ridiculous; she’s the most beautiful woman to ever live.

(He’s not at all biased.)

“Mamma!” Rebecca exclaims. “Mamma, do you want to know what your name means?”

Mamma sits on the loveseat with Rachel, one arm curving around Rachel’s back.

“Of course, _matoki_ ,” Mamma says.

“Rachele…” Rebecca consults her books. They are her pride and joy, to Mamma’s pride and joy; Jews are learned people. “Ewe…a female sheep.”

“I don’t know if that’s worse than trap or not,” Bucky mutters, and his Mamma laughs.

“I have seen some very beautiful sheep,” she says. “But…they tend to smell.”

“You don’t!” Rebecca assures her, and Mamma laughs again and kisses her brow.

“Do you have a favorite name?” she asks and Rebecca flips through a book until she finds the name.

“Michael. _Who is like God?_ ” Her voice rises at the end.

“No one,” he says, even as he realizes it’s a question, not a statement. “No one is like God.”

“I _know_ that,” Rebecca huffs, tossing one braid over her shoulder. “I just like the name, that’s all.”

 

That night, Bucky lies awake and thinks about it.

_Who is like God?_

No one.

God is not unknowable; but God is not precisely _knowable_ , either. Why does it take a name to remind people of that?

 

*

 

Steve Rogers is skinny and frail and _beautiful_ , like spun glass. He holds his fists close to his chest and keeps his head ducked, eyes bright. He lands a solid right hook against the local bully, Evan, and Bucky spends too much time in Rebecca’s dictionary finding the right word for him.

 _War-like_.

 Evan’s cronies pound Steve until he’s curled up in the dirt, blood pooling above his lip and Bucky steps in, trusting Steve at his back. He is older than Steve, older than Evan and Lionel and Derek and they run. It is almost too easily.

Bucky offers Steve and hand and Steve takes it; Bucky pulls him up and it is too easy, he is too slight a burden. Bucky would give many things, in that instance, for Steve to be heavier.

(In seventy plus years he will be, and Bucky will not complain, Bucky will think of purification and forgiveness.)

“Hi,” Steve pants, a rattling in his chest that Bucky will grow intimately familiar with. “I’m…Steve…Steve Rogers.”

“Nice to meet you,” Bucky says, and lets Steve shake his hand. Steve’s hands are small, and bony, and calloused. They are perfect. All of him is perfect. Bucky has never felt like this in his life. He doesn’t wish to ever feel like this again, it is too much. “James Buchanan Barnes. Most people call me Bucky.”

Steve smiles up at him, big and bright, and Bucky smiles back.

 

Later, his Mamma takes him aside and says, “Steve is an Irish Catholic boy.”

Bucky looks at her and his Mamma sighs and adds, “Like your father.”

He knows a lot about his father, about Benjamin Isaac Barnes. He was twenty-three when he died. He was brown haired and green eyed and freckled. He was his parents’ only surviving child. He was Irish Catholic. He fought in the First World War. He did not want Bucky to be raised as a Jew.

And, never said but inferred – it was mistake, for him to marry Mamma. He was unkind to her often, and kind to her just as often, which was an unkindness in itself.

And finally, whispered by his Nonna; _he was weak of character and of spine_.

Bucky doesn’t know how to explain to her that Steve is the _exact opposite_ of his father, that Steve doesn’t mind anyone or anything as long as it isn’t hurtful or unjust.

“Steve is my friend,” he says in the end, and his Mamma’s eyes soften.

“Okay,” she agrees. “Then I would love to meet him.”

 

*

 

Once, when they were seventeen and fifteen respectively –

“James isn’t a Jewish name.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Do you have a Jewish name?”

“Not yet,” a stretch.

“Are you gonna get one?”

“Maybe.” A pause. “James means ‘heel.’ It’s a form of Jacob.”

“Oohh. I wonder what Steve means.”

“I’ll ask Rebecca for you.”

 

A day later:

“Crown. It means ‘crown.’”

A smile.

 

*

 

James is coming to terms with, well, terms.

 

_Brainwash, n._

  1. _a forcible indoctrination to induce someone to give up basic political, social, or religious beliefs and attitudes and to accept contrasting regimented ideas._



_Torture, n._

  1. _the act of causing severe physical pain as a form of punishment or as a way to force someone to do or say something._
  2. _something that causes mental or physical suffering : a very painful or unpleasant experience_



_Murder, n._

  1. _The act of deliberately killing a person_.



His stomach growls. James looks up from his _Merriam-Webster’s_ dictionary to see it is one in the afternoon.

He abandons his book to make himself rice and chicken.

Eating is – hard. The doctors he refuses to see speculate that his digestive system has been damaged by Hydra’s treatment. They suggest a bland diet. James decides to go along with it.

“JARVIS?” he almost whispers, swallowing a mouthful of rice.

“ _Hello, sir.”_

He and JARVIS don’t speak very often. JARVIS will inform him if he has visitors, or give James updates on the security of the perimeter, or gently remind him to eat. When James is trying to break the glass windows, JARVIS begs him not to, cautioning he will have to get Tony, that measures will be taken.

But JARVIS is always there.

James doesn’t think about it too much.

“Do you think, if someone was brainwashed, that they can be held responsible for their actions?”

_“Generally, no. It would help if you were a bit more specific, sir.”_

“Murder.”

JARVIS is silent for a long moment. James still does not fully understand how he works.

“ _If someone is being forced to do something against their will, then they cannot take responsibility for their actions. They cannot be blamed._ ” Another pause. _“I would like to remind you that you are being recorded at all times, as are our conversations.”_

Yes, he knows. “Is there anyway you can turn that off?”

“ _No, sir.”_ The robot almost sounds…regretful.

James does not need JARVIS to tell him where the nearest security camera is. He flips it off and finishes his food, then retreats to his bedroom. He is still sleeping a lot, maybe too much. He finds he doesn’t care.

 

*

 

Clint Barton is a slender, unassuming man with sandy blonde hair, purple hearing aids and a seemingly perpetually broken nose. He moves like someone who never healed right. James observes him from the loft.

“Err, hi,” Clint says when he sees James. “I’m Clint Barton. You might know me as –”

“Hawkeye,” James finishes for him. “I know you.”

Infamous, for seducing Black Widow. Sharp shooter. SHIELD’s hound.

“Were you awake for New York, a bit back?” Clint asks. He has his hands in his pockets. He scuffs one ratty converse clad foot against the carpet. James watches him carefully.

“No,” he says. The last time he was awake was in 2006, he thinks.

“Are you going to come down from there?” Clint asks.

“No,” James repeats.

Clint sits in an armchair – Bruce’s usual spot – and begins to talk. He talks about Tony Stark, a little, but mostly he talks about Thor. About Thor’s brother. About what is essentially, from James can tell, Shakespeare in space.

(In Space.

 _What?_ )

And then, New York; Loki takes over. Loki _takes Clint over_.

Clint stops talking. His voice has gotten gradually softer and when he says _He took my mind_ his voice is as soft as a t-shirt you’ve worn a hundred-hundred times.

James understands, now, why JARVIS warned him that they were being recorded.

“How did you get it back?” James says, turning his body away to present a smaller target. He is shaky. He makes two fists, one flesh, one metal.

“Natasha kicked me in the head.”

Natalia. Natasha. Different levels of formality. James moves on from it.

“I don’t think…” he stops, jaws clamping like a bear trap.

“No,” Clint agrees. “It won’t work for you. What happened to me was…magic, of some kind. But, I thought you’d like to know – the weapon the Red Skull had. That’s the weapon Loki had.”

In another life, James remembers talk of the God’s Cube, of the Tesseract. He flinches away.

Steve had died for that thing.

“It’s back where it belongs,” Clint says in his t-shirt voice. “In Asgard, Thor’s and Loki’s realm.”

James does not sag with relief. But he quiets some.

“I’m not quite back to normal, don’t know if I’ll ever be.” Clint is standing again, hands back in his pockets, head bowed. James can see the nape of his neck. What is more vulnerable, the nape or the throat? He cannot decide. “But – I’m better than I was.”

“How?”

Clint frowns. “I don’t know,” he admits. “I just…sort of muddle through it.” A pause. “Therapy helps me, I don’t know if it’ll help you.”

“It’s hard,” James says, without his own permission. “It’s like trying to ride a horse while blind. It’s something…unknowable but I’m trying to know it anyway – and I don’t have a choice, it feels like – and it never ends, it never stops, even if I get better there’s more to do. How can I pit myself against something bigger than anything I have ever known?”

Clint looks up at him. His eyes are clear. “You find somethin’ bigger.”

If he had a hat he would have doffed it. Instead, he smiles, nods, and leaves.

 

*

 

The Widow visits next.

“Heard you saw Barton,” she says, leaning against the door.

James is in his loft again, and this time he holds a history book on WWII in one hand and a cup of tea in the other.

“Nice of him to visit,” he says quietly. Then: “Didn’t even try to make it subtle.”

“Subtle is not in Clint’s repertoire,” she replies. Her hair is as red as blood, as the star on his metal arm. He wants to scratch the star off. “How are you doing? I’m sorry I’ve been away.”

“Is that all?”

Natasha pauses. “I’m sorry,” she repeats. “But Tony works best with all of the facts.”

“Does he have all of the facts about you?”

“No one does,” she replies. _Not even me_ is between them, heavy.

 

*

 

The Red Room, abandoned by the Soviets when their union fell; the Red Room, eagerly seized by Hydra.

He had been awake for that. He was kept awake to train the operatives they seized.

Natalia had been among them.

He broke her arm the first time she tried to run.

 _I’m a ballerina_ , she kept saying, and though tears ran down her face, she did not cry out when he snapped her humerus. _I need to get back to the ballet_.

 _No,_ he had said. Then, in case it wasn’t clear; _you were never a ballerina. That was all a lie._

She had cried out, then.

 

None of the other operatives would have told her the truth. Natalia had learned that and returned to stick next to him. He was called Yasha. She became his shadow, his burr.

Her arm didn’t heal right, so he re-broke it. This time she bit her lip so hard it bled all over her shirt.

 

Three months in of living in each other’s pockets, her ascending from student to comrade, and she asks, _isn’t Yasha a Jewish name?_

He stiffens, slams her against the wall, lays his forearm over her throat and pins her there. They are alone. He is trusted. He is valued. He is an asset.

 _It is the closest they had to my original name_ , he had snarled.

 _Then there is no need to be so angry_ , she looked at him squarely, eyes hot.

_You know there is, you know the danger –_

_On my file, it lists my surname. Alianovna._ A pause. _Alyan is a Muslim name_ _in Russia_.

Yasha pauses and steps back. She breathes, gratefully. Her pale throat is already bruising.

 _They call you the American_ , she says.

 _Yes_ , he agrees.

 _You are Jewish, aren’t you._ She makes it so it’s not a question. He does not answer.

She kisses him, then, and he fists one hand in her long red (like blood) hair and lets her.

 

*

 

“I have never told anyone else,” Natasha tells him. “Never. But Tony – we can trust him. He is disgustingly transparent.”

From her, that is high praise.

James cannot say _I killed his family_ because Tony will know.

“I want to meet him,” he says instead.

Natasha nods.

She opens the door to go, and then pauses. “James? Go to therapy.”

“Fuck off.”

 

*

 

Tony Stark sweeps into his quarters and starts talking before James can acknowledge him.

“So, the arm. It’s eighty pounds and it looks _really_ outdated. It has to be causing you pain. We can definitely do better, Buck – er, James. I’ve even drawn up some designs, though you’ll have to have x-rays done, y’know, since it’s grafted to your spine – I think? – and I don’t know the full extent of what I’m working with. I can even add in some special gadets, though Bruce told me a flame thrower wasn’t appropriate –”

“I killed your parents,” James says, very slowly and clearly.

Tony stops talking. The glowing blue circle in the center of his chest seems to pulse brighter, just for a moment.

“I’m sorry,” James adds. “I thought you would want to know.”

Tony is shaking. James shifts, readying for a fight – but Tony just turns around and walks away.

 

*

 

If Natasha could have decked him, she would have.

(She still could have, but she was afraid if she did, all of his progress would come undone like a spinning wheel set in reverse. She was afraid that if she raised a hand against him, he would use his metal arm to cave in one side of her skull.

He was afraid, too.

But the thing was – she would have healed. Slowly, and painfully, but it would have happened. She was like that. Like him, and Steve. The Avengers just didn’t know it yet.)

 

*

 

Like Steve. Steve who said _I’m with you til the end of the line_ but doesn’t come to visit.

James throws his book across the room.

 

*

 

Dr. Yaso has dark skin, dreadlocks, and a fondness for bright lipstick. It’s fuschia today. James finds that he likes it.

“I’ve been given a lot of your medical history, as well as records from Mr. Stark and files that he told me have been ‘recovered’ from the organization holding you,” she tells him. Her voice is musical and lightly accented. He wonders if she sings. “I have never seen anything like you, Mr. Barnes.”

He twitches.

“James.” It’s not a request.

“James, then,” she agrees smoothly. “I’ve been told you showed a great reluctance for therapy.”

He looks up, pins her to the chair with a look. “Wouldn’t you?”

“Yes,” she returns his look, does not cower, does not back down. Tony – or whoever – did a good job picking her. “I’m amazed you’re in therapy at all.”

He chews on this. “Don’t want anyone else in my head.”

“We’re only going to talk about what you want to talk about, James.” Her voice is low and soothing, which only makes him tense up. He can remember being soothed while they strapped him into the chair.

(This memory makes him want to pull every tooth out of his gums.)

“Tell me,” he orders. “What you know.”

A pause.

“You’re suffering from complex post traumatic stress disorder –”

“What is that?”

“A reaction to the inter-related and repeated traumas you experienced, such as torture, brain washing, abuse and imprisonment.”

His gaze skates to his metal arm, to the weapon. Dr. Yaso sees him looking.

“Science fiction would term you a cyborg.” She sees his look of blank incomprehension. “A man with machine parts. But – it’s really a prosthesis, isn’t it?”

There’s a metal figurine on the table next to him. Some sort of animal. He knows it’s not hers, knows it’s Tony’s – they’re still in his tower, after all. Bucky is not permitted to leave.

He picks it up.

“What is this?”

“I believe it’s a bulldog.” A pause. “Made of…cast iron, I believe.”

He crushes it.

It’s not hard; he can hear the gears whirring in his arm, as they always do when he does something that requires above average human strength. The dog figurine folds onto itself, molding to his fingers until it’s an unrecognizable blob.

He puts the mangled thing back on the table.

Dr. Yaso is carefully not reacting. He doesn’t really care. It wasn’t intended to scare her (but it would be better, if she was scared of him). It was to show her that his arm has never been a prosthesis.

“It’s a weapon,” he tells her. One heart beat. “I’m a weapon.”

She does not take notes. He expected her too. His experience of doctors is for them to write everything down.

“Can you be a person, too?” She asks.

“I don’t know.”

 

Silence stretches, growing larger, and then she breaks it.

“You feel guilty.”

He twitches. A gear _whirrs_ in his arm.  

“Should I not?”

She crosses her legs.

“I don’t know,” she admits. “Do you find it helpful to feel guilty?”

He shrugs. “I don’t have a choice.”

A smile. “James, I think that’s a good thing.”

“Why?” he eyes the _thing_ that used to be a bulldog figurine. “I thought what happened wasn’t my fault.”

“It isn’t,” she says immediately. “But for so long you were denied the ability to have opinions or emotions. Who are we to deny you autonomy over this?” She leans forward in her chair. “Everything you feel is valid. I think what people mean when they say ‘it isn’t your fault’ is that you don’t _have_ to feel guilty.

 

*

 

In therapy they tell you “you don’t have to feel guilty” and “it isn’t your fault” while also telling you “you have to recover” and “you have to try” and “your body remembers, even if the mind doesn’t.”

_I thought it wasn’t my fault._

“It isn’t.”

_How can it not be my fault when it was my body?_

 

*

 

The next time Bruce visits he talks about Tony’s newest project for twenty minutes before Bucky cuts him off.

“Where is Steve?”

Bruce’s eyes remain brown.

“He was instructed not to visit you.” Bruce takes a sip of his tea.  He doesn’t say anything else, but James hears it anyway.

_In case he upset you._

_In case you tried to kill him again._

“He misses you.” Bruce says this so gently it’s like he’s said nothing at all. “He worries about you.”

James flinches. “We’re being recorded.” He tells Bruce, like Bruce doesn’t already know.

“He blames himself.” Bruce continues, taking another sip of his tea.

Of course he does, of course Steve does, because he has always been Steve’s just as Steve has always been his –

“Please stop.” James says.

 

*

 

The Steve that had rescued Bucky from Hydra had been his and not his – bigger, stronger, healthier, but he had hugged the same, sweetly and a little desperate. His mouth had twisted down the same way, his eyes were the same blue; he even smelled the same.

When they stopped during their trek back to camp, to eat and rest, Bucky had buried his face in Steve’s neck and _breathed_.

Then they were back at camp, and there was a woman who looked at Steve the way Bucky looked at Steve, but this time Steve noticed and looked back, and Bucky –

Bucky got drunk.

Steve had found him, the way Bucky used to find _him_ , and had sat there. He hadn’t asked about Bucky’s shaking hands, or the fact he was drinking a little much. Instead he had sketched out his plans to kill Hydra, and asked if Bucky wanted to come with him. If he was willing to follow Captain America, that was somehow Steve and Not Steve, into the jaws of death.

“Hell no.” Bucky had snapped. “That little guy from Brooklyn who was too dumb not to run away from a fight? I’m following him.”

He meant to say, _since when did you have to ask?_ But he knew. Steve was always like that – him against the world. People kept leaving him, so he was always surprised when anyone wanted to stick around, even if Bucky had been sticking around since Steve was ten and Bucky was eleven.

 

Steve had worn the uniform, had talked the talk and walked the walk. Captain America was still Steve but a different Steve, a Steve taken to new heights, new levels.

A Steve that had a girl named Peggy. A Steve that wasn’t Bucky’s.

He’s always been selfish.

 

*

 

Peggy is still alive. James is not surprised to learn this. She’s always been tough.

 

*

 

Dr. Yaso asks about Steve, and James doesn’t know what to say.

She asks about how he’s doing, how he feels about recovery and James twitches.

“Too big.” He rubs the fingers of his flesh hand together, faster and faster. Then: “It hurts.”

 

*

 

Bucky has always been good at pain – the pain of being Jewish in an anti-Semitic city, in an anti-Semitic time; the pain of wading into fights to rescue Steve, and sometimes the pain of _being_ , whether it’s at six or sixteen or twenty-six.

(Later: at ninety-six, and seventy years between.)

He’s good at the army, good enough to warrant a quick promotion and training as a sniper. He’s good at that too. Good at killing.

It hurts him, and he’s not good at this hurt, at this pain – at the loss of something he cannot get back.

 

At synagogue, the Rabbi taught about _Halachah._ About the laws Jews lived by, and the 613 Mitzvot.

Bucky had assembled his rifle, quickly and silently, take aim, and shoot. He killed. He never had to wash any physical blood off of his hands and yet he was drenched in it.

At night he had stared at whatever is overhead – dark tree branches, the rough canvas of his tent, the vastness of the night sky, and thought of law.

_Do not stand by idly when a human life is in danger._

_Do not slay an innocent person._

When Bucky had been drafted, the first thing he did was go to the house of his Rabbi. They had sat in his Rabbi’s living room in silence. Bucky had not known what to say, what to ask – it was all too much, too soon.

“The Talmud says, ‘whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.’” The Rabbi had said, just as the silence grew to be unbearable.

Bucky had scrubbed one hand over his face, heat prickling along his shoulders. “I don’t understand.”

“The Talmud also says, ‘If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first.’”

“None of this makes sense.” Bucky had snapped finally. “I don’t – what does it _mean?”_

“I don’t know.” The Rabbi had confessed. “Ha-Shem has tasked us to live life his way, but he has also tasked us with the duty of interpreting it.”

“You’re supposed to know.” Bucky caught himself worrying his lower lip, something Steve always did.

“I am not Ha-Shem.” The Rabbi had smiled. “I am only human. I, like you, have been tasked to follow _Halachah_. But I cannot do it perfectly, and Ha-Shem knows that; that’s why he gave us the gift of _Teshuvah_ , so we can return to him and to balance.”

“It seems to me that the war is ruining that balance.” Bucky had said after a moment, frowning. “And now I am to partake in it.”

“The Germans are doing horrible things to us.” The Rabbi’s face had clouded, lips twisting down. “Perhaps you will help fix things.” He had reached out and touched Bucky’s arm. “War does terrible things to a man’s soul. It defiles us. You must choose for yourself how to interpret the laws, and how to survive what they ask of you. We will be here when you come back; the _Mikvah_ will be here when you come back.”

 

So Bucky thought of Steve. Whenever he made a shot, whenever he killed a Nazi, he thought of Steve. If he had to kill a thousand people to save one life, let it be Steve’s.

So he is good at war, good at pain. He is made impure, but he lives.

 

*

 

When Hydra took him –

When they strapped him down to a table and make the world turn red, and black, and white. When they defiled him.

Then Bucky was not good at pain.

 

*

 

Recovery _does_ hurt. His head hurts, from remembering and forgetting and remembering again. His spine hurts, from his arm – from the weapon – and his gut hurts, from a long static digestive system learning to work again.

But it also _hurts_ , a hurt that hides behind his heart and lungs, a hurt so deep and visceral he wants to take a blade and carve it out. He knows he would not find it, that he would cut his own life away looking for it.

He’s apparently supposed to live with it. It will better with time.

He isn’t sure if he believes that.

 

Sometimes he goes mad with it, with the pain – punches the glass windows until he has to be restrained, does it best to twist and mangle the furniture, takes books off the shelves and hurls them across the room. He throws the cutlery, the dishes, his clothes, his pillows, everything and anything. He tries to destroy it, as he was destroyed.

As he destroyed.

 

*

 

The first time they set out to destroy a Hydra base, Peggy had taken Bucky aside.

He had gone warily, aware of Steve’s gaze on his back – or was Steve looking at Peggy? – and walked with her until they were out of hearing range of everyone else.

He was about to say _if this is about Steve_ when Peggy spoke

“The US has gathered some intelligence on the Nazis, but hasn’t…seen fit to release it to the public yet.” She had frowned, red lips pressed tightly together. “You know, of course, that the Nazis are targeting the Jews.”

Bucky had stared at her, the hair on the back of his neck rising. Had Steve – had Steve _told her?_

“Relax, Barnes. My mother is Sephardic. Do you really think I wouldn’t be able to tell?”

“But you – you aren’t Jewish?”

“I’m not much of anything, really.” Peggy had said, shrugging off religion like it wasn’t also a culture and a heritage. “The point is –” She had handed him a file. “The point is, you’re more vulnerable than you know.”

Bucky had opened the file.

What lay inside were Horrors. Concentration camps, death camps, medical experiments, people more skeleton than flesh, murder, murder, murder –

Later, Raphael Lemkin would invent the word ‘genocide’ chiefly to encompass these Horrors, these things that there was no word for.

“No.” Bucky had whispered, his knees buckling, and Peggy had grabbed his elbow and held him upright. “No – we have to do something.”

“We _are_ doing something.” Peggy had snapped, but she had frowned again.

“Not enough!” Bucky had snarled, and he knew by the way she looked at him that Peggy agreed with him. “I –”

“Hydra is part of it.” Peggy had interrupted him. “Why do you think they experimented on you?” She had whispered this so gently that for a minute Bucky loved her the way Steve must – purely, and gratefully, and unending. “Your job is to help Steve destroy Hydra. Hydra is one of Hitler’s biggest weapons. If we can take out Hydra, we’ll have a better chance –”

“Alright.” Bucky had agreed. “Alright. Anything, to make this stop happening.”

“They cannot know.” Peggy had said, handing him a small cloth bag. “Hydra cannot know. Don’t let them take you alive, you know where you’ll end up.”

“ _Never again_.” Sometimes Bucky had felt feral, more beast than man, something profoundly unclean and unworthy. His snarl had been reflected in Peggy’s brown eyes, but she had not flinched. She had reminded him, then, of his mother.

 

Inside the bag was cyanide.

*

Thor is not what James expected.

He is a god, although not God, and he looks it – huge, healthy, kind. He’s the only person James had met that is bigger than Steve. Assassins tend to be lean and quick; too much muscle and you lose speed and flexibility. Too lean, and you have no strength.

James doesn’t want to like Thor, but he does. Doesn’t trust him, but he trusts no one.

“If you are a god,” James says, interrupting Thor talking about someone named Jane, “why are you here?”

“I fell.” Thor says, taking a sip of tea. The mug, usually Banner’s, is absolutely dwarfed by his hands. “For a long time.”

James shifts, arms pressing against his sides, the cold creeping back. “Me too.” He whispers.

When Thor looks at him, his eyes are gentle.

“I do not believe in you.” The words are sudden, almost unbidden – he is griped by the need to explain this. “I will not worship you.”

“I do not require it.” Thor shrugs. “I am not your god. Besides, I wish us to be friends. Steven talks very highly of you.”

Steven? Only Steve’s mother and the nuns at school called him that.

“Does he.” James looks away, out the window. “He would.”

“Wouldn’t you?” Thor asks. “You have survived so much.”

“Sometimes, I wish I hadn’t.” James snaps.

“I have angered you. Forgive me; that was not my intention. I meant only to offer you comfort.” Thor’s huge hands are spread. His upper arms are as thick as James’s thighs.

“Sometimes there isn’t any.” James tells him. “Please go.”

 

*

 

Traveling with Steve – and the rest of them, Dum Dum and Jones and Falsworth and Morita and Dernier – was a new hurt. The world was different now, a little darker, a little grimmer. Bucky was dirtier.

He was faster, stronger. He healed more quickly than normal. He kept it a secret from everyone, even Steve, unable to bear it. Steve had been made a super soldier; Bucky had been made unclean.

And, now, to have Steve by his side after so long –

There were rules about this. There were Mitzvot about everything.

_Do not covet what belongs to another._

Bucky reminds himself this when he catches himself looking at Steve too long, at his mouth, at his hands, at his jaw.

_Do not crave something that belongs to another._

Sometimes Bucky will clap a hand onto Steve’s shoulder and hold onto too long; he always has, and he had never noticed himself doing it before. But now he is afire with him, too aware. He shares a tent with Steve, as they are both officers, and lays awake at night, listening to Steve’s breathing. He wants to touch Steve so badly it frightens him – it’s an enormous want, something he can’t look at directly, too big to know and too bright to look at. He has never wanted anyone quite so much. Maybe this is why he could never settle down with a girl – maybe Steve is the only one for him.

_Love God._

Bucky settles for matching his breathing to Steve’s; at least they are together in this. They wake up together and they go to sleep side by side, a parody of married intimacy. But it soothes the terrified parts of him; whenever he falls into step with Steve, he feels like the world has been righted.

_Fear him reverently._

He understands now, what it is like to love something and fear it. He loves his faith. He loves God. He loves his parents. But he loves, _loves_ Steve and he is terrified of it, of Steve finding out, of Steve being taken away.

 

*

 

One morning James wakes up, showers, dresses, makes himself breakfast and then turns and finds the closest security camera in the kitchen.

“Steve Rogers,” he says, slowly and clearly. “If you don’t get your punk ass down here, I will find you and I will kill you.”

Satisfied, he takes his oatmeal and goes to the loft to wait.

 

*

 

Steve shows up twenty minutes later, sweating, his blue eyes hot. He is quiet and careful as he shuts the door behind him but James knows he ran the entire way here. Was counting on it, even.

“You came.” He says and Steve shivers, the movement rippling down his spine.

“God himself couldn’t have kept me away.”  
“What took you so long?” James demands, and he’s angry now – angry that Steve came and angry that Steve stayed away, angry that Steve didn’t kill him, angry that Steve –

“I was waiting for you to be ready.” Steve says quietly. He’s still standing by the door, hands by his sides. He’s dressed in a t-shirt and jeans, but he looks the same. He probably smells the same. A part of James wants to find out. “I didn’t – I didn’t want to lose you again.”

James looks away.

“But I lost you.” He whispers. He’s lost Steve so many times – when he went to war, when Steve became a super soldier, when Steve fell in love with Peggy, when that plane went down.

He had lived in a world where Steve Rogers was dead for seventy years. He had forgotten himself, because of it.

“I’ve been hunting Hydra.” Steve speaks so crisply that James knows he is truly, deeply, irrevocably angry. “I’m going to destroy them, for what they did to you.”

“Alone?” James demands. His world is in double; he sees Steve as Bucky does and he sees Steve as James does, James the past Winter Soldier. Too many names. Is this why God had so many names?

“I’ve had help.” Steve sticks his hands in his pockets.

“Sit down.” James orders. He watches Steve do so, and remembers why he’s angry with Steve, and gets even angrier that Steve is so _distracting_. But there is so much of him and he is so alive – James remembers the heat that used to come off of Steve, the way his muscles moved whenever he threw his shield. The physicality of him used to take up the entirety of their tent and James had been so glad for it, because he could touch without actually touching.

But he is angry right now. “You told them my secret, after swearing to tell no one. I should kill you.”

“I’m sorry.” Steve looks genuinely distressed, brow furrowing, his proud shoulders slumping. “I just – I wanted to take care of you in any way I could. I should have let you lead, I’m sorry.”

James thinks about words like _agency_ and _forgiveness_ and _love_. He nods jerkily.

“I won’t. Kill you.” He mutters. “How – how is your gut, by the way?”

“Fine.” Steve smiles crookedly at him. “How’s your shoulder?”

“Good.” James rolls it, the one with a flesh and blood arm.

“I’m so – so glad you came back.” The words come in a rush, tumbling haplessly out of Steve’s mouth. “I knew you would.”

“Knew I’d return?” James glances at him sidelong. The way Steve is looking at him makes, so open and earnest, makes something in him open up like a flower hungry for the sun. “You knew I’d follow you, you mean. Like I always have.”

Steve ducks his head. “And here I was, thinking I was following you.” He mutters.

It’s James’s turn to look away.

*

 

He’s still in love with Steve Rogers, whether it’s as Bucky or James.

It infuriates him.

 

*

 

“They took me and made me one of them.” James tells Dr. Yaso one day, looking out the window at the slowly changing trees.

“Who did?”

“Hydra.” He’s tapping a finger against the wooden arm of his chair, faster and faster. “They took me, and they made me – made me do horrible things.”

“It wasn’t your fault, James.”

“Does that really matter?!” he demands, turning to stare at her. Distantly he notices he’s breathing heavily, nostrils flared. Dr. Yaso does not look afraid but then, she never does. “They made me a traitor.”

“To America?” Dr. Yaso asks, almost like it does not matter. James is not stupid. Bruce and Steve and the others try to keep it from him but he knows there is a debate raging if he is a traitor or a victim.

“To my people.” It’s the first time he’s said it out loud. “And now –” he stops tapping the chair and tugs the bottom of his sleeves lower, until it almost covers his hands. “I can’t get clean.”

“Clean how?” Dr. Yaso asks, shifting in her seat. “Do you mean this in a literal sense –”

“No.” He cuts her off. He is able to bathe himself. “I can’t – it’s marked me, don’t you see? What they’ve done, what they made me do, what _I_ did – I can’t wash it off.”

Dr. Yaso doesn’t say anything for a very long time. She stares at James and James stares back.

“Do you think you could ever forgive yourself?” She asks gently, leaning forward. The light catches her Magen David necklace and James focuses on it. He feels his breathing begin to calm despite himself.

“Does it matter?” He asks. The words are heavy. He wasn’t the one killed.

“Yes.” Dr. Yaso says. “It matters very much.”

“No.” James admits. Then: “I don’t know how.”

 

*

 

Steve visits every day. Now that James has given permission he is a quiet constant, always bigger than James remembers, always gentle.

Sometimes James does not want to see him, and Steve has learned to school his face so he doesn’t look disappointed, but James can tell. He’s always been able to tell.

Steve looked that way whenever James attended weddings or bat mitzvahs on the Zarfati side of the family, events goyim were not invited. It had been important, for Steve not to attend, and doubly important for Steve to understand why – and Steve had. But he had chafed at it, at them being apart.

 

*

 

When had it started? When had they gone from Steve and Bucky to _SteveandBucky?_ He can’t remember. He wonders if Steve does. He is afraid to ask. Besides, he is not Bucky, not anymore.

 

*

 

“I’m going crazy in here.” James tells Steve one day. It is early September and he is doing push ups. Steve is cooking him dinner, never mind James just ate.

(“For later.” Steve had said, chopping up tomatoes. “In case you don’t feel like cooking.”)

“I would be too.” Steve says frankly, stirring his sauce. It smells unfamiliar; maybe Sam gave it to him, or Bruce. “I’ll see what I can do.”

 

Maybe it is not up to Steve – maybe it is up to Tony (who has not come back to see Bucky) or the government, or the black, one eyed man Bucky shot. But whatever Steve did works, because two days later Natasha shows up and holds the door open.

“ _Yasha_.” She says, nodding. There’s a hint of a smile on her lips. “Ready to come out and play?”

He watches her, not saying anything. Natasha is little and red and cannot be trusted – or maybe she can, but he has no way of knowing that. Even back in the Red Room, he did not trust her. Loved her, in a backwards way, but did not trust her.

“Steve’s not here.” Natasha says, though he hadn’t asked and never would. “He’s been called away.”

He’s hunting Hydra. James frowns at her.

“Sam is with him.” Natasha says, her smile deepening by a hair. “Do you want to wait for Steve, or do you want to come out now?”

Steve will not always be here. James knows this, because Steve is always leaving – he is needed too badly to always stay. James cannot afford to wait.

He follows Natasha out of the room, arms held at his sides, the metal one clenched into a fist. Natasha is not alone – Thor is there, smiling jovially, a hammer held loosely in one enormous hand.

“Where are you taking me?” James asks, trying to figure out if it’s necessary to fight. He doesn’t want to. The edges of the world keep falling away, and he has to bite the inside of his cheek to make them come back. His head hurts fiercely already.

“To work out.” Natasha answers, leading him down a hallway. She moves in a way that tells him she is armed. She’s doing it on purpose, he can tell. “You’ve been wasting away in there.”

It’s true. He’s not fighting ready and it irks him. Is this what they have been planning? Get him used to gentleness until he is too weak to fight back, and then put him on trial?

He grits his teeth.

 

But Natasha is telling the truth. She and Thor lead him to a padded practice room. Clint is already there, walloping a punching bag as a sweet female voice sings about bad blood.

“What is this?” Thor calls over the beat of the music. He glances at Natasha. “Is this yours?”

“It’s Taylor Swift.” Natasha answers. Then: “it’s Clint’s.”

“It’s _Kate’s_.” Clint says and turns, gathering momentum, before hammering the punching bag with a savage kick.

“So…what? She took your dog and you took her iPod? Very mature.” Natasha drawls.

“Kate is the other Hawkeye.” Thor explains, putting his hammer down to gather his hair back into a knot.

If things had been different, that’s when James would have attacked – he would have hammered a kick into Thor’s stomach, grabbed his shoulders as he sagged and sent him flying towards Natasha, whose eyes were on Clint.

But James didn’t. Instead he nodded like he understood and watched Clint advance, noting the freshly broken nose.

“Hi James.” Clint waved at him with one wrapped hand. Then, focusing on Natasha: “She left it behind. Maybe it’s a passive aggressive teenage thing, I don’t know.”

“Is there a playlist for you? Maybe labeled ‘stupid fucking asshole?’”

Clint makes a face and Natasha snorts. James glances at her. It’s a laugh that he’s never heard before, and it’s jarring.

“You were barely moving that punching bag, my friend!” Thor says, striding forward to clap Clint on the back. “Is it Steven’s?”

“Yeah.” Clint rolls the shoulder Thor clapped him on. “I wanted to see what he was working on. Wonder what you’ll do to it,” he’s talking to James now.

“What?” James says finally, unsure. His hair is in his eyes so he shakes his head. It’s overly long now, a bit past his shoulders. Ordinarily it would have been cut by now, but – he pushes that thought away.

“Those punching bags are specially reinforced for Steve.” Natasha explains, passing him a hair tie. He accepts and puts his hair up, copying Thor. “He still goes through them like candy, especially when he’s upset, but it takes him a little longer than it normally would.”

All James can think to say is: “Has he been upset often?”

Natasha’s eyes are dark. “We all have.”

“Oh.” He focuses on the punching bag. It has been visibly reinforced but is it just like the cast iron bulldog. It is not a problem.

He steps forward, flexing the weapon. For a little while he has forgotten that is what it is – a weapon. He is never truly unarmed.

Behind him, Natasha, Thor, and Clint go quiet.

He punches the bag once, gears whirring, the metal of his fist slapping loudly against the leather of the bag. The punching bag _swings_ and the right seam splits, sand bursting out.

Clapping sounds, loud and hollow. The female vocalist sings _welcome to New York_ as James turns Tony Stark steps into the room, still clapping.

“Very impressive, big boy.” The arc reactor is a pale blue glow beneath his white shirt. “Way to break more of my belongings.”

James stares at him and Tony stares back. He looks so much like Howard, but with a goatee and meaner eyes. Howard had always been a little softer, a little more relaxed. Relaxed enough to not swerve fast enough.

James blinks furiously.

“It’s okay.” Tony says suddenly, and his eyes are a shade lighter, the arc reactor a little brighter. “I forgive you.”

 

*

 

“If Tony forgives you, why can’t you forgive yourself?”

_I don’t know._

 

*

 

Sam finds him scrubbing at his skin furiously, lips between his teeth. The water is bloody by now. Sam grabs his arm, the flesh and blood one, and yanks him out of the shower. James crashes into him, his wet skin sticking to Sam’s shirt. He starts, suddenly viciously cold but Sam curls an arm around him and holds him, shushing him.

“Buck.” He says, like it’s 1945. Sam’s been spending too much time with Steve, to speak to him this way. “What are you doing?”

And how to explain – he had wanted to get down to something that was _real_ , blood and bone. He wanted to scrape himself clean. He had read somewhere that every seven years your cell change so you are a completely different person now than you were seven years ago, and he had wondered what that meant for seventy years – ten different people, ten different selves.

Is there a self that isn’t a killer? Is there a self that isn’t dirty? Is there a self that doesn’t wake up screaming in the middle of the night? Is there a self that does not dream of drowning in something so big he can’t even put a name to it?

“I want –” He does not even know what he wants.

“Okay.” Sam says, his voice gentle. “Let’s dry you off, okay? I think it’s time you meet a friend of Bruce’s.”

 

*

 

Rabbi Zarfati is a tall, slender, dark eyed man. He is also –

“Your second cousin.” Rabbi Zarfati smiles. James stares at him. He can see his mother in this man, now – in the eyes, and the smile. But the nose is different, and the hair and cheeks. “My mother, Miriam, was your cousin.”

“Uncle Noah’s daughter.” James says finally.

“Yes.” Rabbi Zarfati nods. “I’m named for him.”

They’re sitting in James’s quarters, in the living room. James sits across from the man, instead of above him, in the loft.

“What do I call you?” James asks. This man – this stately, older man – is younger than him. Is baby Miriam’s _son_. His head is beginning to hurt just thinking about it.

“You can call me whatever you like. Oftentimes people call me Rabbi Zarfati, or just Rabbi. Some of the youth call me Rabbi Z.”

 _Rabbi Z._ James’s mother would have boxed his ears if he had ever addressed a Rabbi so informally. His horror must show on his face, because Rabbi Zarfati smiles at him.

“Why are you here?” James asks after a minute.

“Your friends are worried about you.” Rabbi Zarfati says. “They suggested I stop by.”

“It hasn’t been very long.” James surprises himself by saying, words shading towards defensive. “I haven’t been back for very long.”

“I know.” Rabbi Zarfati says, like he does know.

“I’m trying my best.”

“Okay.”

“I don’t want to do this.” James says, for the first time. “I don’t want to do this.”

“Okay.” Rabbi Zarfati says again. “What about it?”

“The whole….” James waves an arm. “I just want to be okay. I want to be back to normal.”

“I don’t think you can go back, but I think you will be okay.”

“No.” James shakes his head. “I won’t. Do you know – do you know what I’ve done?”

The other man leans back and studies James. His eyes are hazel, flecks of green just peeking through in the afternoon light. “I’ve read your file.” He says at last. “I’ve been following the news. I’ve read the online reports.”

“Online reports?”

“S.H.I.E.L.D’s data base was uploaded during the events in DC.” Rabbi Zarfati shrugs. “I’ve been reading the files in my spare time.”

Jews are a learned people.

“What are you? Besides a Rabbi.” James asks, frowning.

“An attorney. I specialize in aiding advocating for victims of domestic violence.”

Interesting. James wonders how much he’s missed, how many new laws there are, what has changed. He’s grateful, a bit, that they’ve kept him locked up. He finds living overwhelming. He cannot imagine trying to catch up and live at the same time.

“So I know.” Rabbi Zarfati. “What you’ve done. What you were made to do.” He pauses. “There was so much done to you, James, but they’ve convinced you that it was all your fault.”

James looks away. “I don’t want to do it anyone. I don’t want to do anything anymore.” He mutters.

“Do you feel like you’re being made to do something?” Rabbi Zarfati’s tone is gentle but his eyes are hard, and James realizes that if he said _yes_ then this man would go to war to make sure it stopped.

He had not expected to find family here.

“They say the more I recover, the better I’ll be. That it takes time. It’s too much.” He adds, letting out a long breath. “I’ve done so much…I hate being asked to do more.”

“Even if it’s for your benefit?”

“I just don’t see why I should have to do it.”

“Or you don’t see why you should do it.” Rabbi Zarfati is too damn perceptive. “You don’t care about yourself very much.”

“Don’t see why I should.” James hears the Brooklyn accent creep back and scowls. “I’ve done more harm than good, haven’t I?” The words begin to come and then they won’t stop. “If I had died, they would have found a way to resurrect me. I don’t remember much but I remember that. They wouldn’t let me die until they were done with me. I was a tool, an asset…the minute I stopped being useful, they would have killed me.”

“But you didn’t stop.”

“I don’t understand how.” He doesn’t say, _I wanted to stop once I learned Steve was dead_.

“Maybe you were meant to live.”

James watches him carefully. “You mean, Ha-Shem wanted me alive.”

“I will not pretend to know if he did or not. But…you’re still here, aren’t you?”

“Why?”

“I don’t know.”

James shakes his head. “No one fuckin’ knows.” He snaps. “I hate – I hate not knowing, and that’s all this is, isn’t it? Just struggling with it. Living with not knowing, for the rest of your days.”

Rabbi Zarfati holds his hands a shoulder breadth apart. “The capacity for human knowledge is this much. But what we want to know –” He flings his hands wide. “Is this much. Too much for us to contain.”

“Feels like that’s what it’s gonna take.”

“To be okay?”

James nods.

“But you do want to be okay. It’s not just your friends, that care so much about you.” The way Rabbi Zarfati says it, it’s not a judgment. It’s gentle enough that James flinches.

“Steve cares so much.” He bursts out. “He wants – I don’t know. I don’t know if I can give that to him.” _If he can be what I want._ “I don’t know if I can be Bucky again.”

“Do you want to?”

“I want to be okay. But if I can’t go back, then I want to be brand new.”

 

*

 

Here is the story of Jacob:

Rebecca and Isaac were married for twenty years, and then God blessed them with two children. Rebecca suffered terribly during the pregnancy and asked God why; he told her that within her two nations warred, and would war all their lives, but that one would be stronger than the other, and the elder would serve the young.

Jacob, a second son, was born holding his twin brother’s heel. Esau was a hunter, covered in hair, and Jacob worked inside the tent. But while Esau was strong, Jacob was clever.

One day, Esau came in from the fields so hungry that Jacob managed to trick Esau into giving Jacob his birthright in exchange for some food. And so it seemed the elder would serve the young.

When their father, Isaac, who was already blind, fell ill, he tasked Esau with slaughtering a deer and making Isaac a final meal. But their mother had other plans. She told Jacob to slaughter two goats, and disguise himself as Esau wearing Esau’s clothes and the goats’ skins. She used the goat meat to cook a meal for Isaac, and sent Jacob to him as Esau.

 _How is it that you have found the deer so quickly, my son?_ Isaac asked.

 _Because the LORD your God sent me good speed._ Jacob responded.

But Esau never used the Lord’s name, so Isaac was suspicious, and asked Esau to come forward so he could feel his son’s arms.

Isaac felt the goatskins and thought them to be Esau’s hairy arms. _The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands are the hands of Esau._ Said Isaac. _Are you my son, Esau?_

 _I am._ Jacob said, and Isaac believed him, and ate the goat meat.

 _Come near now and kiss me, my son_. Isaac said, and Jacob did, and Isaac smelled the clothes of Esau, and blessed him.

Esau returned as Jacob left, and Isaac realized he had been tricked.

 _Is he not rightly named Jacob? For he has supplanted me these two times: he took away my birthright and now he has taken away my blessing!_ Esau cried, but Isaac but did not take away the blessing. And so it was ensured that the elder would serve the young.

Esau was enraged and promised to kill Jacob, so Rebecca convinced Isaac to send him away so he might find a wife.

Jacob left Canaan and traveled through Luz to Haran. In Luz he slept with a rock for a pillow and dreamt of a ladder with angels descending and ascending, with the voice of God sounding at the top. And the voice of God repeated Isaac’s blessing to Jacob, and so he was twice blessed.

In Haran Jacob stopped at a well where sheep were being watered and fell in love with Rachel immediately. He agreed to work seven years for her hand in marriage, and did; but her father, Laban, gave Jacob Rachel’s older sister, Leah, as the veiled bride.

Laban agreed to give Jacob Rachel if Jacob worked another seven years, so he agreed, and married Rachel a week after Leah, then worked another seven years.

There was much tension between the two wives. God opened Leah’s womb but closed Rachel’s, so Rachel gave Jacob her handmaid, Bilhah, so they could have children together. Then Leah gave Jacob her handmaid, Zilpah, so they too could have children together. Later, God opened Rachel’s womb again. By the end of seven years, twelve children were born.

Jacob amassed a large flock, and left Laban to return home. Rachel stole her father’s household gods when they left, so Laban pursued Jacob and his family; but when Laban caught up to Jacob and his family, and demanded his goods back. Jacob did not know about the theft, and invited Laban to search his tents. When Laban reached Rachel’s tent, she sat on top of the goods and told him she could not move because she was menstruating, and so she kept the goods. Laban left after swearing peace with Jacob, and Jacob and his family continued home.

As Jacob approached Canaan, he sent messengers ahead to Esau, hoping his brother had forgiven him. They returned to tell Jacob that Esau was preparing an army of 400 men.

Jacob prayed to God and then sent Esau a large tribute of animals to appease him, with the message _to my lord Esau from your servant, Jacob_.

That night Jacob was left alone to commune with God, and God appeared, and wrestled with Jacob until daybreak, but he could not overpower Jacob – 

“What do you _mean_ , Ha-Shem wrestled with Jacob?” Bucky demands. He is six, and he knows enough to know this does not make sense. “How come they wrestled for so long? How come Ha-Shem didn’t beat Jacob right away?”

“Maybe he was not meant to.” His mamma suggests. She is sitting on the edge of the bed, the edge closest to Bucky; Rebecca, fast asleep, is tucked against his other side. “Maybe he just supposed to prove he would not stop.”

“Then what happened?”

“Let’s see…

“When God saw he had not overpowered Jacob, he touched Jacob on the sinew of his thigh and gave Jacob a limp, and that is why we do not eat that part of the thigh. Then, Jacob demanded a blessing, and God declared that from now on he would be known as Israel, or Contends With God. And so Jacob –”

“ _Israel_.”

“And so _Israel_ was thrice blessed.”

“What does contend mean, Mamma?” Bucky asks, rubbing his eyes. His mamma cards a hand through his hair.

“It means ‘struggle with.’” She answers. “Sleep now, _matoki._ I will finish the story tomorrow.”

 

*

 

James and the many doctors who want to see him make a deal: they will allow him to continue to work out, if he lets them see him twice a week (more if necessary).

He tells Dr. Yaso this and she looks at him for a long minute.

“Do you think fighting triggers you?” she asks, and he stares back at her blankly.

 

 _Maybe_. He thinks, hammering a punch at the reinforced punching bag with his flesh hand. _Maybe it does._

“I heard you broke my punching bag.” Steve says. James heard him approach, could smell him, and so does not startle; instead he stops and straightens, hands falling to his side. “It looks just fine to me, though.”

“This is a different one.” James says. He shifts his weight. Steve is still behind him and for some reason James doesn’t want to turn around, but he hates giving Steve his unprotected back. He doesn’t know what to do anymore, but he thinks, maybe – “It wasn’t that hard to break it. You must be getting slow.”

Steve laughs and the sound is so big and joyous it nearly bowls James over. He turns to see Steve smiling at him, blue eyes soft.

James smiles back, hesitant, and ducks his head, hair flopping into his eyes. Then Steve reaches out, slowly – very slowly, and brushes James’s hair out of his eyes.

He had forgotten how much heat Steve gave off, how overpoweringly warm he was. That is the only reason he startles, because it is like being touched by the sun. Steve freezes and James forces himself to quiet, too – and they stand there, Steve reaching out and James not moving away.

There is no reason for him to move away. He knows Steve’s touch – knows it from almost a century ago and knows it from three months ago, knows it in the dark and in the light, under water, in a trench, in mid air. Would know it anywhere.

“I had it on the ropes.” Steve tells him, lips twisting up in a crooked smile. “The punching bag, I mean.”

“I know.” James says automatically, the respond surging up from some deep, hidden part of him. “I know.”

Steve’s smile is like the sunrise.

 

*

 

“They wanted Steve, you know.” James tells Rabbi Zarfati. “Hydra. He was supposed to be subdued, and they were going to…take him. But I took his place.”

 

*

 

Tony comes to see him one day, after James has finished working out. He is rolling his flesh and metal shoulder when Tony walks in, and he freezes when he sees that Tony is alone.

“When are you going to let me look at that?” Tony demands, glaring at him. James stares back, gears _whirring_ in his arm – in the weapon – and does not speak.

“Look.” Tony begins to pace. “I forgive you, okay? It wasn’t – wasn’t your _call_. I know you knew my father, that you liked him, even. I know you didn’t willingly kill him.”

“But I still killed him.”

“Will you _shut up_?” Tony demands. “I’m trying to forgive you. It wasn’t your fault. Let it go. I have.”

 _Clearly_.

“And cut your fucking hair, you look like a menace.” Tony slams the door behind him.

“I am a menace.” James says to the empty room.

 

*

 

He gets his hair cut. Sam does it, because Steve is busy on Capitol Hill and Sam is the only other person James trusts at his back with scissors.

“How short?” Sam asks, carding a hand through James’ hair contemplatively. It’s freshly washed – he’s freshly shaved too, for that matter – and reaches past his shoulders now.

“I don’t know.” James says after a minute. Deciding to cut his hair had been such a momentous decision; he had never stopped to consider any specifics.

Sam pulls something up on his fancy phone – a Stark Industries phone, limited edition, that apparently Tony had forced him to take. “Here.” He points at a picture of Bucky from the Smithsonian exhibit. “How about like that?”

“You can do that?”

“I – no.” Sam shakes his head. “I’ll do my best but I’m not a barber.

Sam’s best is pretty good. James looks into the mirror and sees Bucky Barnes staring back.

“Damn.” Sam says. “I don’t even recognize you.”

“Me either.” James says, running a hand through his newly cropped hair. He wonders –

“Steve will.” Sam says. “Don’t you even worry.”

 

*

 

Dr. Yaso gives him a calendar, to measure the amount of progress he’s made (a lot) in not a lot of time.

He’s shocked to see it’s almost October.

“You’re doing really well.” She tells him, smiling, like not even yesterday he had needed to be restrained by Thor and Sam because of a new, horrible memory. “I’m really proud of you.”

“Okay.” James says neutrally.

 

*

 

Rabbi Zarfati comes, and they pray, and then they sit in silence while James allowed himself to truly, deeply relax. He only does this around the Rabbi; maybe it’s that Rabbi Zarfati is a Rabbi, or his cousin, or maybe he knows he could kill him without blinking –

Maybe it’s none of these things, but he always feels better around the man.

“It’s almost Yom Kippur.” Rabbi Zarfati says after twenty minutes of comfortable silence. “I was wondering if you wanted to partake.”

“Yom Kippur.” James repeats.

“The Day of Atonement. Time for _Teshuvah_.”

“Time to Return.” His synagogue lessons are flooding back. “I don’t know if my doctors will let me.”

“Because of the fasting?” Rabbi Zarfati hums. “I don’t know if your health would qualify you for fasting, to be honest. But I thought –” He pauses.

“You thought.” James prompts.

“You cannot forgive yourself because you don’t think you’re worthy of forgiveness.” Rabbi Zarfati says this so gently the words take some time to register – and then James is standing, back against the wall, metal fist clenched by his side.

Rabbi Zarfati watches him calmly.

“You don’t get to decide if you aren’t worthy of forgiveness, James. Ha-Shem does. So let him decide. His gift to us is _Teshuvah_ – the chance to return to him, to start again. You want a fresh start. Here is how to get it. Practice _Teshuvah_ , and petition Ha-Shem for forgiveness. Immerse yourself in the _mikvah_ , and allow Him to wash you clean.” It sounds like a speech he’s prepared and given before, but lawyers are like that. Rabbi are too, able to turn normal words into a ringing declaration. And this – this was the real deal.

James swallows.

“I can’t go to the synagogue.” He whispers. “I’m not safe.”

“I know.” Rabbi Zarfati sighs. “But you don’t have to wait for Yom Kippur to practice _Teshuvah_. You can do it right now. You can do it tomorrow. You can do it ten years from now.”

“Right now?” James repeats. He moves slowly, walking back over to his chair and perching on the arm of it. Rabbi Zarfati looks up at him.

“Right now.” He agrees.

 

*

 

What had he done? What sins had he committed?

He had killed. He had doubted. He had strayed. He lied. He had done – a lot of things, that weren’t his fault (Hydra), and then things that were sort of his fault (the army) and then things that he would have done again and again (for Steve).

Did he feel remorseful?

Yes. He felt terrible. He felt as if he would split in two from it, from _holding_ it. He had never missed the cold before but he missed not having to remember.

(Would he go back? No, never, _never_.)

How could he make sure it wouldn’t happen again?

He didn’t know.

He would never serve Hydra again, never willingly. He would die first. He would make sure he would die first, though he was cautioned that might not be in his control –

(You haven’t totally recovered from the brain washing. There might be trigger words that we haven’t discovered yet. There’s still so much we don’t know.)

But would he kill again? If he had too. Did the Talmud not say, _If someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first?_

Would he lie again?

He would try his best not too. He was only human. Sometimes man strayed from the path of God.

Would he stray from faith again? (Not a Godly sin, but a sin he still felt deeply: would he stray from Steve?)

No. Never again.

And if he did – God forbid, if he did – he would always come back.

 

*

 

James is left alone for the most part, while he figures this out. He doesn’t know how many days pass, or how many appointments he’s missed. He only knows that by the time he’s untangled his thoughts, he feels like a rug having the dust beaten from it.

Natasha is in the kitchen when he emerges; she’s made him macaroni and cheese with a sauce on top of it.

“Barbecue.” She says, when she sees him peering at the sauce suspiciously. “Trust me, it’s good.”

“Are you American now?” James asks, grabbing a spoon.

“I’m whatever I need to be.” Natasha tells him.

“Hm.” He's never heard of barbecue sauce on macaroni and cheese, but it’s good  – very good – and he takes another bite. “Who taught you about this sauce?”

“Clint. He used to be a carnie. They eat weird stuff.” She shrugs. “Did you figure it out?”

He sighs, leaning against the counter. “I don’t know. Maybe.”

“Good start.” She rests a hip against the counter and shrugs. “ _I_ still don’t know, some of the time.”

“Very comforting, Natalia.”

“You’ll get there.” She tells him, and then stands on tip toe to press a kiss to his cheek. “Eat up.”

 

*

 

“You look lighter.” Rabbi Zarfati says as soon as he sees James.

“Yeah?” James asks, glancing at him. He feels, in that moment, more like Bucky than James – trying for desperate casual, hands in his pockets, face carefully unreadable.

“Yeah.” Rabbi Zarfati mimics, but he’s grinning. “Lighter.”

“Well.” James shrugs. “I feel…” He doesn’t know if lighter is the right word. Maybe emptier. Like he’s not carrying as much. Outside, the sun is glinting off the top of the buildings, shining pure through patches of frost and cloud.

He feels like that. Like he’s cresting the top of a hill.

“Let’s go.” He says, like it’s just that simple. “I’m ready. I want to go to the _Mikvah_.”

“Right now?”

“Soon as you can manage it.” He rubs the back of his neck, feeling the newly shorn hair there. His shoulders don’t ache as much as they did. “I think I’ve waited long enough.”

 

*

 

It takes weeks to negotiate, weeks that James spends working hard – working out, working in therapy, praying.

Part of the problem is Rabbi Zarfati refuses to take him to a holy place in cuffs. James can hear the arguments, if he presses his ear to the door.

“He’s dangerous, Rabbi.” That’s Natasha. “If he gets triggered, if Hydra gets him – you’ll die.”

“I believe in him.” Rabbi Zarfati is using a voice James imagines is his courtroom voice.

“We can’t protect you from him.” Clint’s voice.

 _“Ha-Shem will protect me.”_ The Rabbi is unmovable when he gets this way. James shakes his head.

“Okay.” Tony’s voice. “There’s obviously no stopping him.”

 

They let him go on a crisp Monday, around 1 PM. It takes James a while to get used to the town car, heading steadily up town, to Rabbi Zarfati talking quietly about the _Mikvah_ they were to visit – the rules, it’s history, the fact the owners had agreed to close it except for them, to ensure everyone’s safety. He keeps fidgeting, slouching against the leather of the car seat with his hands deep in the pockets of his new coat.

“That’s a nice coat.” Rabbi Zarfati says as the car waits patiently at a traffic light. “The blue goes with your eyes.”

James shrugs. “I didn’t pick it out.”

“Take the compliment, James.”

“Thank you, Rabbi.”

And then –

An explosion rocks the street. The car driver swears as the car jerks. Rabbi Zarfati’s head hits the ceiling and he yelps.

“What the –” A second explosion steals his words.

Around them, people begin to stream out of buildings and out of cars, screaming and crying.

It reminds James of DC.

“ _Crews!_ ” The driver’s earpiece crackles. James focuses on him, leaning forward against the high raised partition. “ _Status on Barnes and the Rabbi!”_

“We’re on 44th and 5th – headed away from the tower. What’s going on?”

“ _Hydra’s attacking the tower. Keep Barnes –”_

James gets out of the car.

“James!” Rabbi Zarfati is peering up at him. He looks terrified. “What are you going to do?”

He doesn’t really have a plan. Get back to the tower. Find Steve. Kick some ass.

Rabbi Zarfati must see _something_ on his face, because he nods. “Ha-Shem guard you.”

“And you, Rabbi.” James says, and shuts the car door.

 

He begins to run back the way they came, dodging people as they stream in the opposite direction.

“It’s like 2012 all over again!” Someone mutters, smashing into James. He shoves them away. “Ow, fuck.”

“Yeah, yeah.” James mutters.

There’s a woman with red hair up ahead, straddling a motorcycle. She’s staring in the direction of the tower and muttering to herself, fingers wrapped tightly around the handlebars.

“Excuse me, ma’am,” James feels himself slip into Brooklyn’s cant, the words and accent coming naturally. He feels like the world has reoriented itself, and he’s finally heading north. “I need this.”

“Oh.” The woman stares at him for a minute. “You’re robbing me? My mom is gonna _kill_ me.”

“Commandeering.” James clarifies. “I’m part of the mess up there.” He jerks one thumb over his shoulder, down town.

“You’re an avenger?”

“Somethin’ like that.” He says, taking the offered keys. “When this is all over, show up at Tony Stark’s tower and tell him I took your bike. He’ll refund you.” At least, he’d better.

“Who do I tell him took my bike?” The woman asks.

He slings one leg over the bike and fits the key into the ignition. “Bucky Barnes, at your service.”

The woman is still staring at him when he takes off.

 

Natasha and Clint find him ten blocks later. He’s thinking about ditching the motorcycle, but traffic is getting better, and it’s still faster to weave through the cars this way than on foot.

The sound of another motorcycle makes him look around.

“Hey!” Natasha calls, her red hair streaming back from her face. She’s bent on the back like it’s a horse she intends to break to bridle, a long bulky package balanced across her lap. Clint in behind her, bow in one hand and quiver strapped to his back, his outfit a tasteful shade of purple. 

“How did you find me?” James – or is it Bucky now? – yells back, revving his bike.

“Twitter.” Clint calls as Natasha swerves to avoid an abandoned skateboard. “#BuckyRidesAgain. #SpotBucky. You’re all over the place.”

He has no fucking clue what Clint is talking again, so he scowls.

“You’re going in the wrong direction, by the way,” Natasha calls, swinging a sharp right. Bucky has no choice but to follow.

“Thought they were attacking the tower?”

“Here!” Clint tosses him an earpiece. Bucky catches it and jams it in. Suddenly everyone’s voices are right in his head, cozy and snug.

“Did they take Tony’s girl or something?” He can’t remember her name. Something spicy.

“Pepper? God, wish they had. She would have cooked them.” Clint shakes his head. “She’s a fire mutant now – long story.”

“She doesn’t like that word.” Natasha murmurs, gunning her bike.

“Fire _being_.” Clint rolls his eyes. “No, it’s not Pepper. They took Tony.”

“I don’t – ”

“He destroyed all of his suits.” Nastaha sounds as pleased as Bucky feels. “So he’s helpless.”

“Why’d he do that?” Bucky asks. He can hear the fighting now, can hear the clang of armor and the steady barrage of gunfire.

“He was trying to do the right thing? Pepper wasn’t clear.” Natasha shakes her head. “Catch.”

He has to take both hands off of the hand bars to do so. The package feels like canvas bundled around metal.

“Is it –”

“Your gun.” Natasha’s voice takes on frost, and she turns to glare at him. Bucky looks for her, as cars come between them and then are left behind. “Don’t fuck this up, Yasha.”

They take another turn – left this time – and someone abruptly starts shooting at them.

“Fuck!” Clint snarls, jumping off the bike and fitting an arrow to his bow in the same movement. Natasha also leaps clear, sending the bike sliding down the road to crash into the shooter.

Bucky stops his bike and dismounts, because he is not an animal, and ducks behind a cab so he can unwrap his gun.

It’s an M4A1 Carbine, the kind he used to take out Fury. Bucky makes a face and starts to assemble it, fitting on the scope and rail. The unused carry handles, carrying strap and forward grips go into his belt. No grenade launcher component, but he supposes he isn’t to be trusted with that yet.

Natasha has thoughtfully included a magazine belt for him, outfitted with ammo and what looks like a Sig-Sauer, which he fastens above his real belt.

“Time to go!” Natasha barks. She’s wielding her two glocks and for a minute it’s just like old times, except October in New York is a hell of a lot warmer than Russia. “You can assemble that at a run, right?”

“It hasn’t been _that_ long.” Bucky snaps, standing and following her and Barton as they run down an adjacent block.

Twice they have to double back because of debris. The third time, Bucky punches the car in their way out of sheer frustration, and Clint makes a low, impressed noise when the car crumples beneath his fist.

“Engineering just isn’t what it used to be.” Natasha remarks, clambering on top of the car. “C’mon, boys.”

 

The first thing Bucky sees is Steve: huge, golden, powerful. Steve, slamming his shield into someone’s face before using it like a horrible, deadly boomerang. He had forgotten, somehow, that Steve fighting is like a revelation. Like seeing the face of God.

The Hulk is also there, using pick up truck-sized fists to clear a path that Steve is following. Thor brings up the rear, swinging his hammer around like it’s a pillow, not a weapon.

There’s also a slender, red haired woman that is more fire than flesh. From the way she fights, she’s furious.

“Huh,” Clint says, pausing by Bucky’s ear. “Pep’s really kicking ass.”

“We’ve been working on it.” Natasha aims and fires at a Hydra agent. “Pilates have given her great core strength.”

“You know, you’re gonna give a guy a complex.” Clint mutters. “I’m the only one on this fuckin’ team without any super powers.”

“You hold your own, sweetie,” Natasha assures him, aiming and firing again.

“Tony.” Bucky says. “No super powers.”

“Super smart.” Natasha points out.

“Super _annoying_ ,” Clint growls.

Hydra seems to notice they’ve arrived. An agent is turning to advance on them, twin sig-sauers held high, when a purple arrow sprouts in his chest.

“That wasn’t me.” Clint mutters. Then: “Kate?”

“CLINT BARTON, YOU FUCKING ASSHOLE!” A girl yells nearby. Bucky glances up to see a girl in a purple jumpsuit sticking out of a window, notching an arrow and firing. “I LEAVE YOU ALONE FOR ONE MINUTE!”

“Kaytie Kate!” Clint yells back, grinning.

Bucky shakes his head and presses on.

 

He knows his job, now, because 70 odd years cannot erase a muscle/bone/soul deep urge to find and protect Steve. He knows Steve needs him as back up, as a sniper, instead of melee. So he sets up his sniper and starts picking off targets, moving forward steadily as Steve does.

Natasha has assumed her place next to Steve, and the Hawkeyes are not far behind. Sam is circling ahead, providing air support. His wings look brand new – Stark must have made him a new pair. Thor and the Hulk seem to be working together, but it’s clear Steve is the leader. When he moves, Bucky moves. When someone comes at Steve, Bucky is there for them.

It’s natural as breathing.

 

He makes a deal with God, then, or maybe an agreement. _Deal_ seems like too much of a ferrety word, too conniving and insincere.

_You told us, ‘if someone is coming to kill you, rise against him and kill him first.’ Steve is part of me. If someone is coming to kill him, I will kill them._

He is not struck down from where he stands, so maybe God understands and forgives. Or maybe God just has bigger fish to fry.

 

At first Bucky thinks Steve doesn’t notice, what with everything that’s been going on, that he has a sniper covering his tracks. But the fourth time Bucky shoots someone who was going to shoot Steve, Steve actually pauses and glances around.

Through his scope, Bucky sees Steve’s lips move.

_Bucky?_

“Who’s covering me?” Steve says out loud into his comm as he hammers a kick into the stomach of a man currently strangled by Natasha’s thighs.

“You really – have to ask?” Natasha gasps.

“TONY!” The hulk roars, and sure enough, there he is – thrashing between three Hydra goons as they try to shove him into a car.

“Time to go.” Natasha says again, leaping from her victim’s shoulders to the ground.

 

After, with Tony secured and the Hydra agents either subdued or gone, Bucky fastens the carrying strap onto his gun, puts the safety on and slings it over his shoulder before venturing down from his vantage point. The streets below are crowded with debris and people. Half a block ahead, there’s a car on fire, smoke rising steadily into the sky. Bucky knows Steve and the rest are ahead, and he knows it’s more or less safe now but he still pulls out his sig-sauer.

Flashes go off as he picks his way forward. He ignores them, just as he ignores the sounds of his name, focusing on pressing on, and on, and on.

 

Steve meets him half way, as if he too feels the yearning in his bones, as if he can’t believe his eyes. His helmet is off, there are scorch marks on his uniform but his shield is strapped to his back and his eyes are hot and blue and _alive_.

“You.” Steve breathes, and Bucky stands in the middle of the street and looks at him.

“Me.” He agrees. He knows what this must look like – something out of a memory, here and alive on the ruined streets of New York City. Bucky Barnes, Howling Commando, alive and well and _back_ at last.

“Who are you?” Steve asks quietly. There’s no doubt in his face, just a calm patience that settles over him as he waits.

“I don’t know.” Bucky admits, holding Steve’s gaze with difficulty. His hands, flesh and metal, make fists by his side. “All I know is I always come back to you.”

After 70 years, Steve still hugs the same. Sweetly, and a little desperately.

 

*

 

From what he can gather, the public is not happy that Bucky was allowed to fight alongside the Avengers, that he was allowed _out_ at all. Neither is Dr. Yaso, though she is gentler about her concerns.

Tony handles the press with his usual flair, Pepper quiet and charming beside him. Natasha also pitches in, arguing that since Bucky didn’t defect, clearly he’s a good guy.

The rest of them stay out of it.

Bucky is allowed to practice with weapons, now. Tony is making him an outfit, something that channels his “1940s vintage blue pea coat look, but way more high-tech.”

He doesn’t really want to think about it. He wants to retreat back in his room and stay there, safe and peaceful and quiet.

But he wants – he also wants, very much, to be where Steve is. To go where Steve goes.

Rabbi Zarfati finds him cooped up in his room, mashing potatoes with a wooden spoon. He’s having limited success.

“I saw you on the news, and on twitter.” The Rabbi says, standing by the door. “#BuckyRidesAgain.”

“I still don’t know what that means.” Bucky tells him, setting down his spoon. “Would you like to stay for lunch?”

“Sure.” The Rabbi takes a seat at the breakfast bar and folds his hands in front of him. “Are you Bucky now, then?”

“I don’t know.” Bucky returns to mashing his potatoes. “Seems to fit, after all of that.”

He doesn’t quite know how to explain it, that he felt returned to a self he didn’t realize existed, but it was a self he could take off and put on if needed. He didn’t know who he was at the core, anymore.

“Once I asked my old Rabbi why Ha-Shem needed so many names.” Bucky rummages in the cupboard for coconut milk. “I think I was seven. My Rabbi pointed out there are different names for different parts of you. And later –”

“Names says what you’ve done, what you’ve been through.” Rabbi Zarfati nods. “When Moses asked Ha-Shem what his name was, he didn't want to know _who_ Ha-Shem was. He wanted the name that summed it all up.”

“I don’t have one of those, is all.” Bucky fishes a can opener out of a drawer and gets to work.

“It doesn’t seem to bother you nearly as much.”

“Everything’s a little quieter now.” Bucky shrugs, mixing the coconut milk into the potatoes. “The last few days have been…” he waves a hand awkwardly. “I don’t know.”

“Do you have a proper Jewish name?” Rabbi Zarfati asks, rubbing his chin.

“No. I never got one, don’t know why. But back then, three names was long enough.”

“James Buchanan Barnes.” Rabbi Zarfati grins.

“Not a Jewish name, but not a Catholic one, either. It was good enough for Mamma.” Bucky shakes his head. He hasn’t made mashed potatoes in years, and he’s a little fuzzy on the details. “Steve asked me who I was, and I – I told him I didn’t know.”

A pause. “Cousin Rebecca always spoke highly of him.” Rabbi Zarfati takes off his glasses and polishes them on his shirt. “Said he was the nicest boy she’d ever met.”

“He’s that,” Bucky nods. “And more.”

“You seem to care for him very deeply.”

Bucky laughs. “You could say that.” He mutters, stirring the potatoes a little faster. “Glad to see it’s so obvious.”

“Do you know what else is obvious?” Rabbi Zarfati asks, and he’s smiling.

“What?”

“That you’re a good man.”

“Stop.” Bucky mutters, scowling. “You don’t – you don’t know me.”

“I do.” Rabbi Zarfati argues. “I know that you’re struggling with the concept of goodness, that you’re struggling back to Ha-Shem, and I know these are the actions of a good man.”

“You’re making me sound like somethin’ I ain’t.” Bucky snaps. “I’m just trying –” He pauses, thinks of Jacob, who became Israel. _Contends with God._

“Did you know James is an English version of Jacob?” Rabbi Zarfati asks.

“I’ve heard that before.”

“Do you know what Jacob means?”

“Supplanter.” Bucky says automatically. “One who takes the place of another.”

“Jacob took the place of Esau, and you –”

“Took Steve’s.” Bucky sets his spoon down.

“And now…” Rabbi Zarfati shrugs. “It’s quite poetic, actually.”

Bucky stares at him. “I don’t…” He swallows. _That’s a lot to carry._

_You’re already carrying it._

“Sometimes, I get tired.” Bucky admits. “Of muddling through. Of trying to figure out everything I want.”

“Sounds like you’ve figured something out, though.”

_What do you want, Bucky?_

 

*

 

Tony throws a gala to fundraise for the City of New York. It’s supposed to smooth things over a bit; it will demonstrate to the public that the Avengers and friends care for the City, and oh yeah, that Bucky Barnes isn’t a bad guy anymore.

That’s how Tony puts it, and Bucky –

Bucky agrees, lets himself be dressed in a tuxedo. Natasha, stunning in tight black lace, escorts him to the party. For a minute it feels familiar. They’ve gone undercover like this before, Natasha in satin with a fur stole around her shoulders, hanging off of his arm like an accessory, her cleavage and his smile distracting everyone from the fact they aren’t supposed to be there. Later, when the dead body is discovered, her cleavage and his smile deflect suspicion. Usually they leave long before the body is discovered.

But this is not an undercover assignment, and Natasha is coolly confident in a way that tells him she wants to impress someone.

“Who is going to be there, besides you and Tony?” He asks as she leads him down the hall and into the elevator.

“Steve, of course. Sam, Bruce, Clint, Kate Bishop –”

“The other Hawkeye?”

“Yes. Carol Danvers – you don’t know her but she’s great. Pepper, to keep Tony in line. Thor and Dr. Jane Foster, her assistant Darcy Lewis, Colonel Rhodes – try to avoid him, Tony might’ve forgiven you for killing his parents but Rhodes definitely hasn’t – Maria Hill, the mayor, and a bunch of socialites.”

They walk into the elevator, and Natasha stabs the _pent house_ button with one pale finger.

“Are you sure –” Bucky pauses. _That I’m safe?_ He wants to ask.

“No.” Natasha’s eyes are calm. He doesn’t remember honesty being her strong suit but it seems that it is, now, or that she’s getting better at it. “But there’s enough of us to protect the civilians, and to stop you.”

“ _Penthouse level.”_ JARVIS announces.

“Just a minute, JARVIS.” Natasha orders. She refocuses on Bucky. “Look. Have fun, get yourself some food and some water, and try your best to avoid talking to anyone. Oh, and put these one.” She extracts some leather gloves from her clutch and hands them too him. “This way you’ll avoid any awkward questions about the arm. Okay, JARVIS, we’re ready.”

The elevator doors open with a _ding,_ and Natasha struts out, towing a reluctant Bucky behind her.

 

He’s not prepared for how many people are here, for how many people are _looking_ at him. There’s a murmur when he and Natasha appear but they both ignored it, and then Natasha disappeared to talk to Banner – _oh_ , Bucky realized with a grin – and Bucky has taken to leaning against a wall and people watching. Thor is there, listening to two pale brunette women argue, an adoring look on his face. Clint and the other Hawkeye, Kate, are there – Clint is cowering while Kate lectures him, hands on her hips. She’s wearing purple. Bucky wonders, absently, what the deal is with Hawkeyes and purple.

Tony is there, talking earnestly to Pepper, Sam Wilson, and a bunch of people Bucky doesn’t know. Steve is talking to a black man in a military uniform, possibly the Colonel.

Bucky stays by the wall and watches it all. If this had been even 10 years ago, he would have had a knife and a mark to shadow, but now he has nothing to do but watch people flirt with Steve until he smiles back.

Bucky turns and slips out onto the deck.

 

Manhattan sprawls beneath him, light up and gaudy. In the distance he can see Brooklyn, the bridge spanning the river gracefully. There’s not a star in the sky but New York more than makes up for it, and for a while Bucky stares down at it and thinks of nothing at all. It’s cold on the observation deck but it’s not Russia, not stasis, so he lets it wash over him. The cold makes each breath sharper, bringing the world sharply into focus and it occurs to Bucky that he deeply prefers late Fall, or early Winter, in New York City. He’s been all around the world, he’s slogged through trenches in the armpit of Europe, he’s crawled through snow in Siberia, he’s tracked targets through the Yukon and down south, into the Midwest, but there’s nothing like this. Nothing like New York, where he keeps ending up, time and time again.

“Buck?” Steve sounds far away. Bucky had barely heard him come up but he stiffens now, turning to see Steve watching him carefully.

“You weren’t there, when I looked,” Steve says after a minute. He looks lonely, big shoulders squared against the cold wind, hands in his pockets.

“Needed some air.” Bucky says. “Feel free to join me.”

Steve smiles at him shyly and Bucky exhales shakily.

He remembers, diving into the river, thinking that the water had not been gentle. That he was not gentle. And that was still true, whatever Rabbi Zarfati said – he may be a good man but he was not gentle.

Love, he thinks as he watches Steve draw near, the heat coming off of him already palpable, was not gentle. Love was something that took two boys from Brooklyn and smashed them together so thoroughly that they kept coming back to each other, whatever the distance, whatever the years.

He feels the weight of it all on his shoulders, feels the years behind and ahead stretch out and out and out and thinks that he is done waiting, that if he gets a third chance at life he wants to be brave with it.

“Steve.” Bucky says and Steve looks at him, eyes soft, lips quirking in a gentle smile. “Steve, I –”

“Buck.” Steve says, softly. “Hey. Buck.”

“ _Steve_ ,” Bucky almost sobs, and kisses him.

Love is not gentle but Steve is – he cups Bucky’s face with his too big hands and kisses him reverently, kisses him until Bucky aches with it. He hadn’t known tenderness could burn but Steve is setting him on fire, his teeth grazing Bucky’s lower lip, his hands sure on Bucky’s cheeks and jaw.

“Buck.” Steve repeats, voice gravelly. Bucky shudders, the movement rippling down his spine and when Steve tugs him closer he goes.

“You’re always comin’ back to me,” Steve murmurs, moving until he’s kissing Bucky’s jaw.

“Always,” Bucky promises, gasping as Steve kisses the skin beneath his ear. “Don’t – don’t wanna leave again.”

“Then don’t.” Steve orders him, scraping his teeth against Bucky’s neck. “Stay with me, for forever.”

“Yeah.” Bucky agrees. “Alright.”

Steve stops kissing him and draws back until he can see Bucky’s face. They’re both in shadow, illuminated only by the shifting light from the party. Steve’s eyes are so dark that Bucky can barely see the blue in them, can only see the heat.

“D’you – d’you wanna get out of here?” Steve asks, blushing a little, and Bucky fits a possessive hand around one of his hips.

“Take me to bed, Steve Rogers.” He whispers, grinning like a fool, and an answering grin spreads over Steve’s face.

“Yessir.” Steve says, and takes Bucky’s hand in his. He leads, and Bucky follows.

 

*

 

When Bucky goes to the _Mikvah,_ snow is falling lazily and God is with him.

He supposes, as he strips, showers, and towels dry, that God is always with him. That God has always been with him. But today feels more real, as Rabbi Zarfati leads him down a softly lit hallway to the _Mikvah._

They don’t speak as Bucky steps slowly into the water. Rabbi Zarfati is here to bear witness and Bucky is here –

Bucky submerges.

 

Under water, there is nothing between you and God. When the air runs out and the water begins to crush you, God steps in and says _I am here,_ and when you begin to doubt he reminds you, a little louder, _I am here._

When Bucky submerges, God says, _I am here_ , and Bucky feels the same way he felt in Steve’s arms, something so strong and visceral that ‘belonging’ is too small of a word for it. All of the words he has are too small in the face of this, and all of his names – James, Barnes, Bucky, Yasha, The Winter Soldier, and most privately, _Israel_ – fail.

When his head breaks the surface and he breathes again, when he murmurs the prayer, Rabbi Zarfati speaking with him, God says _I am here_ over and over until Bucky does not need to struggle. Later, as he begins to dress, fingers clumsy on the buttons of his coat, he finds it within himself to reply:

_You are here, and so am I._

 

**Author's Note:**

> [An article on Teshuvah (link).](http://judaism.about.com/od/judaismbasics/g/teshuvah.htm)  
> [An article on The Mikvah.](http://www.chabad.org/theJewishWoman/article_cdo/aid/1541/jewish/The-Mikvah.htm)  
>  **I am aware this links to a website about Chabad, or Hasidic Judaism - not the branch of Judaism Bucky practices/is from in this fic - but the article is actually taken from the introduction of an anthology about The Mikvah. I apologize for any offense.  
> [Another, shorter article on The Mikvah.](http://www.myjewishlearning.com/life/Life_Events/Conversion/Conversion_Process/Mikveh/how-to-mikveh.shtml?p=1)
> 
> [Here is the gun Bucky uses,](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M4_carbine#M4A1) which is indeed what he used in Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
> 
> In an effort to acknowledge there are a lot of varied Jewish experiences as well as to stay true to Bucky's very specific experience and heritage (Italian Sephardic Modern Orthodox), I have included a lot of characters with different experiences. Of course, with the focus on this fic, I couldn't expand on them in text so here are some notes.  
> Dr. Yaso is an Ethiopian Jew (Beta Israel) who immigrated to Israel and then America.  
> Bruce Banner's mother was Ashkenazi.  
> Peggy Carter's mother was Sephardic but not Italian.
> 
> edit: hey since i'm getting a lot of asks about it - YES, Natasha's patronymic, Alianovna, is culturally muslin in Russia. [Information was taken from this post (link).](http://marnz.tumblr.com/post/152527949314/something-for-mcu-fandom-to-play-with-if-you-want) Very happy I have such engaged readers who ask about such important details!!! :D <3
> 
> [visit me on tumblr!](http://marnz.tumblr.com/) prompts welcome.


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